The Misadventures of Jakobin Blane
by XxForgottenFailurexX
Summary: Public school is a dirty diaper: it stinks & totally drags. Thus, I've been homeschooled all my life & successfully became a social retard. While my only talents lie in getting beaned & being wrong, I've discovered something horrible: I don't know me.
1. I Become A Biscuit Kid

**Due to many reasons, I am forced to ask that if you are viewing this, please finish this first chapter. It may seem long, but other chapters are shorter and I promise you will not be disappointed. Thankeths for your time! Much love to everyone and peace! 3**

Chapter One 

No one knew what to do with me. I had just come in a taxi and said that my mommy, Tristan, said I was supposed to be here. Later I would be told that my arrival was not only the easiest anybody had ever reached this camp, but it was also the strangest. I was informed that all of the children at the camp had had problems getting here, although I wasn't sure quite how it could be difficult. Maybe their parents were color blind… or mentally retarded. But no--me? I just showed up with nothing but my packed messenger bag after pulling up in a taxi to this place. I wasn't able to pay attention to the actual look of the camp— a buttload of the camper kids' stares made me too wonderfully self-conscious to sightsee. I suppose they were all shocked to see someone new, but thankfully one of them steered me to what they called "The Big House" to talk to their activities director.

At first I had thought everything was fine; Mommy was sending me to camp to learn how to make friends like she always did (as I never had); this camp just had a funny name, that's all. I've heard worse ones. Camp Daggit. Camp Hoochiha. Camp Enchanted.

Camp Enchanted was the worst and it was all girls. All they taught us was how to eat soup correctly and how to sit down in a dress, how to dance and how to say hello to boys, how to put on lipstick and how to curl your hair. Which basically translates to they taught us didly-squat. The only knowledge I came back with happened to be that the majority of the girls there only knew how to count to 98, because that's how much they all weighed. Not to mention they were all horrified if they ever had to learn a new number due to any recent weight gain.

Camp Half-Blood. No biggie. Everything was still rad. Until the man who had been informing me stood up out of his wheelchair.

But… but not onto his feet. In fact, his feet fell off the footrests of the wheelchair. Just plopped onto the floor. Just like that.

My eyes got huge.

Out of the wheelchair seat, out stepped a body of a huge white horse, which softly kicked over the wheelchair it had been imprisoned in, toppling onto the two fake feet.

I nearly screamed at first sight, and nearly shit myself on the second, but eventually he told me in a voice much like a therapist's (and trust me, I know a thing or two about how a therapist's voice sounds) that "No, no, everything is alright. You're not crazy; half my body really _is_ a horse."

Me? Not Crazy? Well. I'll be damned.

"Did your…" he hesitated, "…'_Mommy' _say why you should come here?"

I couldn't speak. The dude informing me was the lovechild of Mr. Rogers and Seabiscuit. I just shook my head. Mr. Centaur then shook his own head and sighed.

"They're always dumping me with this responsibility…" I heard him mutter.

But I pursued the idea of him being a centaur and disregarded his murmurings. "You're… you're a…you…"

"A Centaur, yes," He finished for me in a nonchalant voice. "But that's beside the point, my child."

There he was, standing some two feet above me, rubbing his scruffy beard, perhaps thinking of how his oats hadn't digested very well this morning. One of his hooves counted on the floor as he pondered; making a _tup-tup-tup _on the floor of the room we were in. Mr. Centaur perked up, looking down at me with raised eyebrows.

He saw that I was still in shock, and kindly suggested I sit down. My mind was too overwhelmed to tell my legs to journey to a chair, so my body just fell onto my bottom in a heap. Sitting cross-legged now, I stared off into a crack in the floor, but my ears kept attentive. They seemed to be the only part of me still working. Mr. Centaur's voice softened.

"My child," He began. I looked up at him, now understanding that all of this was somehow happening when I had been told all my life that it never could. "You mother may not have told you, but you are here for a very specific reason."

"I'm listening," I confirmed.

"Yes. You see, you, my dear, are in fact, a demigod."

Oh. A demigod. Mmmmmm hm.

"Well," he chuckled. "A demigoddess."

"Hyeah," I scoffed.

Mr. Centaur furrowed his graying eyebrows, now looking concerned. His hoof stopped counting as his posture somehow managed to straighten even more so than it was before.

"You do not believe me?" He questioned, his voice going up at the end, as if he were truly astonished. He said he'd always been dumped with 'this' responsibility; I'm sure he's met plenty of kids more retarded than me saying outright in front of him that they _still _didn't believe him. But I guess I had to at this point, since he was frickin' half horse.

I stammered. "Ah— I love Greek Mythology, sir. I dig everything about it, especially all the magical creature-thingies. A-and I think it's way super awesome that you're a centaur. In fact, I never thought I'd meet one, but I guess I was wrong." I threw up my hands in surrender. "_Really _wrong." I put them down again. "And now that we both understand that I do believe in you and the entire Greek god thingies, let's also establish that there's no way in _hell _that I could be a demigod. Demigoddess. Whatever demi-_ish_-god-_ishness_-which-I-happen-to-be-but-really-am-not." I took a deep breath, nodding my head and squinting my eyes with confirmation. "Mm, yeah. That's, uh… that's all I got."

He laughed. "Let us make it easier. You're saying you're not a Half-Blood?"

"Half-blood, then. I can't be a half-blood."

I'll admit that I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe him so badly, but… there was nothing great about me. I couldn't find a damn thing, and here he was, telling me I was special. I was the daughter to one of those beautiful beings I loved so much and within that statement I found it to be completely impossible.

"I couldn't belong to any of them, sir," I confessed. "It's just a mistake."

He crossed his arms and smirked confidently.

"Really, then? Have you ever met your Father?"

"Sir, my father lives with me."

Mr. Centaur raised an eyebrow, looking slightly less confidant. "Your real one?"

"Well, as far as I know!" I laughed, although not whole-heartedly. But Mr. Centaur didn't laugh. He looked the side, puzzled. In the meanwhile, I tried to explain. He watched me intently as I did so.

"My daddy's Drake D'Artagnan Blane. Him and mom moved from California with me to New York," I said. "Now he's a part-time librarian at New York Public Library, and the other half of his time he's home schooling me. I mean, it's because of him that I love reading all about Greek mythology. He's pretty cool when he isn't, you know… making raw potatoes into people or dropping ice cream on his shirt. He's… he's really rad."

I was just trying to make it clear that Daddy was alive and present in my life, and since I knew and lived with both of my parents; there was no room for me to be daughter of any God.

I trailed off thinking about my dad. Whenever I got back from any camp, his first question was always if I had made any new friends, and although I always said no, he would just smile and say it was only however many years until I turned sixteen and it would be just me and him who would go to Disneyland and go to the Garlic festival. Although I didn't know why the Garlic festival was so awesome (Daddy would always say something along the line of 'well, they have garlic ice cream. It's preeetty raaad.') I thought that Disneyland sounded great.

Mr. Centaur seemed to be scrutinizing my banana'd checkerboard messenger bag when he finally asked, potato carving and ice cream droppings aside, if there was anything strange about my dad?

I managed to stammer again, struggling to think of anything. "Ah—I dunno. He's sort of weird altogether, so I wouldn't know what to tell you," I laughed, still finding it terribly hard to think of anything noticeably off about Daddy. "He talks like a beatnik even though he grew up during the 90's, he's a rabid Vivaldi fanatic, and he likes to quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail…"

"Anything exceedingly strange?" he persisted.

I finally remembered, now that I had hit my head a few times with my fist. I told Mr. Centaur that even though I saw him everyday, that Daddy would sometimes send me letters. They were usually fairly short, and all of them that I could remember came with a present, and all of them were signed with 'Love, Daddy.' But whenever I went to him to say Thank You, he always looked at me confusedly and said he hadn't gotten me anything. Then he'd just go back to whatever he'd been doing or finish up the lesson he had been teaching me.

After telling Mr. Centaur this, he got this strange glint in his eye and went back to grinning. He said that really _was _strange of my Father (of course, he attached a lot of those eminent "Indeed, Indeeds") and that he would look into it with the Headmaster of the camp. But until then, this was my Camp and I was fully welcome to it. I pursed my lips, but eventually I shrugged and just said that that was cool with me.

"Yes, it will be very cool," he smiled. "In fact, I'm sure you'll find it to be the coolest place you may have ever seen, although not in the literal sense of the word."

"As long as you don't make me learn how to eat soup properly," I muttered. Mr. Centaur looked down at me utterly confused, but I didn't care. I was a little tired of explaining, so I sort of shut up.

And good thing I had.

The Camp was beautiful. Fields of strawberries rolled over each other as their fragrance danced in every breeze of Camp Half-Blood air. In this landscape danced satyrs, playing on their reed pipes or sitting and chatting amongst each other or with Dryads. Occasionally the dryad would look away and the satyr would make a reach for a hug, but she would quickly turn into a tree or a shrub and the poor satyr would be crestfallen.

There were archery fields where dozens of kids were shooting perfect targets. There were only a few that missed, which stabbed a tree, turning out to be a Dryad who would pluck the arrow from her arm and shout a 'yo momma' insult at the dingbat who missed the target, and haughtily revert back into a grumpy tree. Stables lined some of these knolls, where eventually diverged into—not a corral, but a long road resembling the kind airplanes lifted off from. For out of the stables galloped horses with wings—Pegasi, who took to the air with campers on their backs.

The Greeks' mythical creatures were popping right out from all the books I'd ever read with Daddy, flying around and chasing each other, screaming and sneaking strawberries. My eye twitched. Although I was devoutly abstinent, I could've sworn I was high. My taxi driver drugged me with cocaine and I was sitting in the backseat, telling him "Aw, hell naw, I'm no demi-gah-nah-hoosh-nah-haha…" as I cringed and tried to bite my own ear.

But I found that this place was real when I was pelted with a dodgeball.

"Oh crap!" I heard someone say in the distance, as stars and Pegasi circled around my head. I was in a haze and dusting off my glasses (which had fallen off after I'd been nearly killed by the damn ball) when I heard Mr. Centaur telling some kid that I was new, and they should be more careful of where they're throwing something, it's could poke someone's eye out, and that wasn't going to be any fun if that one eye belonged to a Cyclops.

"Aw, I'm sorry," They said, although I had no idea whether it was to me or to Mr. Centaur. But I heard them giggle and run off, yammering with their friends.

"…told you it was a girl," one of the other ones said.

As we continued through the camp, I asked Mr. Centaur where it was that I was going when he replied that he was showing me to my cabin for the night, and that the campers there would happily fill me in about activities and the like.

"If not," he grinned. "They can take it up with Mr. D."

"Who's Mr. D?" I asked stupidly, looking up at Mr. Centaur again as we walked.

"Oh, he's the Headmaster of Camp Half-Blood… respectively," He answered.

This Mr. D is the headmaster. I wondered what he looked like if there were satyrs in the fields and there was a centaur for activities director. Speaking of which…

I jerked my head to Mr. Centaur. "Sir, what do I call you? You know, if I should need you or anything?"

He raised his eyebrows again and smiled.

"Oh, forgive me, then. I've forgotten to introduce myself. You may call me Chiron, if that's alright with you. But if you need me, I'm usually attending to things in the Big House, but that won't keep me from trotting around the camp."

"Okay, I can do that. It's all rad…" I responded, trying to convince myself that everything really _was _still rad and not scary yet. I had tendency to bawl like a baby when it got scary, but I was trying to keep face.

Then there were the cabins. There were twelve of them, curving around a huge field that had a campfire in the dead center. From here I could see the Big House again and felt the need to ask Chiron why the hell he took me all that long way when we could've just walked down the hill to the cabin area, but then I realized if we had I wouldn't have seen all that countryside with strawberries and grumpy trees. But they were all there, the cabins, although they looked much more like Greek temples. Each was decorated according to its supporting Olympian god or goddess.

On the cabins, there were campers sitting around on the stoops, chatting with their friends, while others were playing tag. Beside another cabin, a boy was playing a golden lyre while the girl next to him sang a song as she read off of some paper. But they were interrupted when the girl was slammed in the face with a water balloon, and screamed angrily as two shadow campers ran off, laughing evilly. One of them was struck to the ground however, when the boy who'd been playing lobbed his lyre at the back of one of the shadow campers' head.

"When we discover who you're parent is," Chiron said at last, once we reached the center of the field at the fire site, "you'll be put into their cabin."

I freaked. "So— wait, wait, wait! I only get a cabin when you find out which God is my mom or dad? But I just told you, my parents—"

"Shhh. All will be fine," he interrupted. He concluded this with such finality that I decided I should just be quiet and stop protesting. I suppose I should be grateful. Chiron was going to let me stay here, although I probably didn't belong. Then again, I didn't belong anywhere, so it wasn't as if I wasn't already used to it by now.

On the upside, I was engulfed by the mystical—the magical. I was surrounded by unmistaken magnificence, breathing and living… existing when the rest of the human world denounced the very idea as nonsense. I was among the children of the Gods, sons and daughters of the most powerful entities that ruled the very Heavens above me. Everything was suddenly surreal; I had to hold the sides of my head for a second until I felt my mind shift back into place; everything sank in.

Camp Half-Blood was the land of the Godlings.

It was a sanctuary especially for the children of the deities that held the fate of Mortals in their grasp, children born of Ambrosia and Nectar, and human blood.

And I… I just didn't belong.

--

The cabin looked like something my closet threw up. Everywhere I looked there was another mess of clothes and CDs, another kid with a sleeping bag, and the sleeping bag was accompanied with a ruddy backpack, and the ruddy backpack was accompanied with bouncing fleas. Oh wait. Those were just jellybeans. Never mind.

This was the Hermes cabin, or Cabin Number Eleven, or in my mind, the Pillsbury Biscuit Tube Cabin, because if a door opened, all these suffocating kids looked like they'd just spew out with that signature pop, and then proceed flooding out of the cabin in a bulge with a sluggish _pffff _sound. Besides, it was brown like a biscuit tube anyway. Chiron had explained to me that all new members of Camp Half-Blood were put into Hermes Cabin until the camp faculty could determine who your Olympian parent was. He went on to say that Hermes was totally cool with strange kids lodging in his cabin because he was the patron god of travelers, so he wouldn't mind my staying there at all.

There were only four sets of bunk beds, so everyone else was forced to cram onto the floor. I estimated that there were about thirty or forty kids in this cabin, and all of them had stopped whatever they'd been doing to shoot a look at me. Blood rushed to my face in embarrassment as Chiron pushed himself into the cabin and moved me smoothly to his side where I ground my gaze into the ground, pretending all those eyes weren't burning holes in my clothes. I felt like I was back in kindergarten when my teacher decided to introduce me to the class, starting with the whole This Is Our New Student Everyone Be Nice speech, which, in kindergarten speak, meant 'Everyone, please shoot spit wads and pelt this new brat with gum.' I cursed under my breath as I squeezed my eyes shut.

"Everyone," Chiron began.

Oh no. Please, don't…

"I would like to inform you that this young lady beside me is your new cabin mate. I should hope that all of you will make her feel very welcome for the duration of her stay here among you all."

No one said anything.

"Good, then. I'd also like to add that she will be getting to sleep in one of the bunk beds, since this is her first night with us."

No one said anything. But I could feel their glaring at me resentfully.

"Wonderful. Now that there are no objections, I'll leave her with you all," Chiron bade, turning to leave while simultaneously nudging me with his horsey behind toward the bloodthirsty kids in the cabin. I nearly tripped with my eyes still clenched shut, but I managed somehow to keep standing there, clutching the strap of my messenger bag.

"Hey, Chiron, what's 'er name?" I heard one of them call from way in the back of the cabin. He turned back around to see if I would say anything, but I was too busy trying to find a sliver of dignity in advance for when these kids would eat me alive, most likely with a rusty eggbeater and a blunt spork. I'm sure Chiron realized I didn't have the guts to say my own name, so he took the burden upon himself, turning confidently to face the Campers once again. I could just see that genteel smile on his face as I felt his hand pat my head as he dared speak the words that would soon be apart of my epitaph:

"Oh yes. How could I forget? This, campers—"

Goodbye, cruel world.

"—is Jakobin Blane."


	2. Gummy Bears and Groovy Schnitzel

Chapter Two 

The moment that Chiron left, I expected the full onslaught of the campers; that within a mere matter of seconds, they would soon be beating me with my own limbs. However, I found myself in blessed disappointment: there was nothing. No one said anything. In fact, I heard some of them go back to talking and swapping gummy bears for jellybeans and arguing who was going to give up their bed for this weirdo chick named Jakobin.

I took in a fearful breath, opening one of my eyes. To my surprise, everyone was completely ignoring me. It. Was. Wonderful. I almost smiled, but my mouth was paralyzed in its pinch-hole position. Maybe this wasn't going to be the end of me. Camp Half-Blood was chock full of strange creatures anyway, so I couldn't be _that _bad. Maybe this would be the first summer that I would finally be able to make—

I got beaned with a gummy bear.

The room went dead silent. Then some moron in the back of the cabin laughed a nasaly "_HA _HA!" like that Nelson kid off The Simpsons.

Consequently, the entire cabin burst into a fit of laughter.

Nope. This cabin would be my death. I change my mind.

An aggravated sigh escaped me as I tried to disregard my guffawing cabin mates. I trudged (if one could call it trudging, since I was mostly tiptoeing between mounds of muddy Camp Half-Blood T-shirts and a variety of 80s pop albums) toward a slightly less populated corner of the room.

When I got there I realized why.

There, in the corner, was a pair of red and black pinstriped socks smushed up against the wall. These socks radiated a stench so bad you could've thrown them at Michael Jackson and his nose would've just melted clean off.

I squinted my eyes while I gathered up some nonexistent guts. I kicked the reeking socks out of the corner with my shoe. I again disregarded the horrified screams that followed thereafter, sliding off my messenger bag; it toppled to the floor in a heap. Into the corner, I shoved myself, but it was too late now that I realized it was not the most strategic battle plan.

"Hey," I heard someone say.

I didn't respond, I just pretended to search through my bag, as if I was missing something of extreme importance.

"_Hey_!" they persisted. "I'm talkin' to you!"

I took a deep breath and lifted my head to look at them. It was a boy in a big SUPPORT THE ALMIGHTY ACORN T-Shirt, a shag of brown hair hanging over his eyes, completely keeping them out of sight. He had a straight nose and impish grin; this quality was only intensified by the two tiny, curious moles dancing on the top of his left cheekbone and the bottom of his right jaw line. I flattened my mouth into a sharp line, pursing it in one corner. With my index finger, I pushed up my glasses. Now that I had fully opened my eyes, I could see that the members of the Hermes cabin had presently quieted down, and a few watching me and Shaggy over here in the smelly-sock corner.

"Um… yes?" I finally replied. He grinned.

"Welcome to Hermes cabin. What was your name again?"

"Ah… Jakobin."

"Mm," he grunted. "Jakobin. Like those crazy dudes during the French Revolution? The ones who wanted to chop everyone's head off?"

"Yeahp. Mom said when she was pregnant with me she just about lost her head, so she decided to name me accordingly," I explained.

He laughed, "Well! That's not very nice!" I said 'no shit' and dreadfully laughed a bit myself, but then I went straight back to digging through my messenger bag, still looking for the thing I was pretending to be missing.

"Anyway, I'm Connor," he continued. "And that chick over there is Groovy Schnitzel von Dorktenguttenhoffen." Connor pointed over to some dude that basically looked like his clone. The dude was sitting on the bottom bunk of one the bed sets, shaking a plastic container. I could hear squeaking noises coming from it when at last I saw that there were two adorable white and brown spotted rats inside with firecrackers attached to their backs. The boy just cracked a grin and murmured to them, then looked over at me and Connor.

"GROOVY SCHNITZEL!" Connor yelled, although the room wasn't that loud. The boy frowned, took the rats out of the container, and set them on his head. He loped his gangly body over to us, his two rats clinging for dear life to his ragged mop of hair.

"Stop _calling _me that!" He groaned once he'd reached us.

Then his head darted downward to look at me. An immediate wicked grin spread across his face. I fought the instinct to recoil. So instead, I looked to the side to escape his tricky smile. Man, I wished so badly that I could just inch away or say that I felt a monster diarrhea chill coming on and I needed to take care of it immediately, but Connor and Groovy Schnitzel had me… well, cornered.

Connor laughed demonically and put an arm around his clone.

"Yeah, so this is my sister, Groo—"

"HIS BROTHER, Travis," Travis interrupted, narrowing his eyes at Connor. One of the rats on Travis's mat of hair decided that Rat Number Two was morbidly obese and was hogging all the room Travis's head could provide. So, Rat Number One hopped over to Connor's identical mess of brown hair.

"WE are the _Stoll brothers_!" they said in unison, breaking their half hug.

Connor pointed to the rat on his head— "And THIS is Cookie."

Travis likewise did the same with his rat— "And THIS is Cow."

"—they're a gift from our dad," they both finished.

"Y-your…?" I stammered again.

"Hermes, you dorkwad," laughed Travis, taking Cookie and Cow from their nests and putting them back into the plastic container. I now saw the container had holes savagely poked into it. Travis passed the container to one of the other Hermes kids, and told them to help the rats make their way back to his bunk. Of course, the campers all did as he asked. They passed the rats to each other until they reached Travis's bed mattress, like a big Save the Rats brigade.

"He's our real father. We're not here because we're undetermined," Connor stated. Now, both of the Stoll brothers loomed over me. I just twisted the strap of my messenger bag as I sat staring up at them.

"Hm, wonder who your mommy or daddy is?" teased Travis. My eyes turned back down to by backpack, ashamed.

"Well, I'm not a Half-Blood. I already have a mom and dad…" I tried to say, although I knew they could barely hear me.

"Already? Well, one of them had to be a god, if you're hanging around all of us," said Connor as he shoved his hands into his jean pockets. "They don't let you into the camp if you don't smell like a demigod."

"And demigods usually smell like those rancid socks over there," snickered Travis. I didn't know if they were trying to make me laugh, but I knew it wasn't working. I stopped talking to them and pulled out my notepad and my pencil; started sketching what was the beginning of a rat with a firecracker on its back. But the Stoll Brothers persisted.

"What do you think she looks like, Travis?"

Travis scoffed. "Ch! Maybe an _Ares _kid, with how she's not talking to us."

I didn't mean to, but I groaned. "Ugh! I _hate _Ares! Don't say that. All he does is run around, killing people like a mindless pig," I complained. "He—"

"Shut up!" Travis said hurriedly, nearly frightened. "Percy already shoved a grumpy bug up Ares's butt; do you want to do the same?"

"What?" I shook my head, not understanding. I didn't know who this Percy kid was, but the Stoll Brothers here were overreacting. "It's not like Ares is here."

"Oh, the hell he _is_. The gods could be anywhere. You might find yourself up shit creek if you meet one who isn't Mr. D— uf!"

Connor punched Travis in the arm and told him he better stop cussing, and besides, 'they shouldn't try to overload my little noob-tastic head.'

Travis recovered from the punch, and then turned away from me to face the rest of the campers. His brother did the same.

"EVERYONE!" They yelled. "WHO HERE IS SLEEPING IN THE BUNK BEDS?"

No one said anything.

"Come on, you liars!" Travis shouted.

"Now! — or we'll sign the whole cabin up for Toilet Duty!" threatened Connor.

Two hands raised into the air, slow as molasses. I thought Connor was going to tell them thanks for being honest, but one of them was going to have to give up their bed, but not to worry because my 'noob-tastic' hide was going to be on the floor tomorrow anyway. However, I heard Travis do that stupid Nelson impression instead—

"_HA _HA!" He mocked, as he pointed at the two kids.

Suddenly I was outraged.

"You buttmunch! _You_ were the wiseass who threw the gummy bear!" I yelled. Travis looked over his shoulder a little and just mouthed 'Who cares?'

His evil grin didn't break once. Focus returned to the other Hermes kids.

"Oh, you're kidding!" Connor grimaced. "Who here can do math? If there are four sets of bunk beds, and me and Connor are in one of them; that means…"

"Uh… you guys should raise your hands too?" some camper answered hesitantly.

Connor and Travis glared at the camper, and then turned to each other, all their steam gone. What followed was the eeriest, creepiest display of 'happy' I ever saw. They began smiling and laughing, and punching each other on the arm playfully, talking about how the toilets looked like they needed a _reeeal_ wash down before the Ares kids would be usin' 'em, especially tonight after dinner, and we were having barbecue and _beans_…

The remaining four hands immediately shot into the air.

"That's what I thought," smiled Connor. He picked which one of them to relinquish their bed by a very diplomatic process of an "eenie-meenie-miney-mo-catch-a-Chiron-by-his-toe-if-he-kicks-you-you-will-die" game. One of the campers scowled in defeat, and then tiptoed over the hardly visible floor to their bed set to remove their things from the top bunk. They returned to the spot, plunking down with begrudging thud, and glared at me. Why they were mad was beyond me. It's not like they had given up much.

The bunk bed I'd be sleeping in belonged to the Grandpappy of all bunk beds. There were millions of scratches and dents, holes, and pencil markings all over its wooden frame. Badly drawn caricatures of what I assumed were students in sumo wrestler mode were the creative scars etched into its four posts, along with sharpie sketches of flying toast and elephants shooting booger bullets at screaming people. Aside from the cartoons that ran wild across the frame, was the bunk itself. It was shorter than the rest of the other bunk beds. Plus, the top bunk's mattress hung and sagged in the middle, bulging at the bottom through the criss-cross wire that held it.

More so than anything else, it was because of this particular bunk bed that I realized perhaps I was indeed a half-blood— for I had the familiar streak of bad luck that was essential to all Greek tragedies.

This bedset,_ this_ particular bunk bed, this _ONE_ spot where I would be sleeping—

was the very one right next to the likes of Connor and Travis Stoll.


	3. Apollo Sprouts a Trunk

Chapter Three 

Wacko Jako. That's what I got when we were taking art class.

If I could've avoided the entire following situation— trust me, I would have. Because it was my first day here, I hadn't expected anyone to immediately make me start doing activities with my cabin. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

We were lead to a small hill overlooking the strawberry fields for our art class. I had to admit, it was pretty high up on my scale of radness. Camp Half-Blood's art room was completely rockin', and also completely circular. On the ceiling, there was a mosaic portrait of a man creating a beautiful woman out of ivory. I immediately identified the mosaic as the great artist Pygmalion, creating his statue of Aphrodite, never knowing he would soon fall in love with that very statue. The only thing that ruined the mosaic was the some fifty small, also circular light fixtures hanging like heavenly orbs. They were suspended over the solid marble tables in the middle of the room. Near the top of the ceiling, there were shelves stocked with ancient Greek pottery. Along the curving walls were glass cabinets filled with painting supply, brushes, and rolls of canvas paper. Others were full of sculpting utensils, bottles of ink, or reed strands. Directly beneath the cabinets were marble counters cluttered with drawings and other artwork by campers: little models of animals and clay pots that looked more like half-melted hobbit feet.

Our instructor, who was an older kid from the Apollo cabin named Isaac, was teaching us the fine art of sculpting. We were doing fairly well, I'd say. Everyone was minding their own business molding small sculptures of toasters or putting clay in each others hair. Travis and Connor were talking to Isaac while he was working on his sculpture of his Apollo. They were telling Isaac about how _their_ dad could _so _take _his_ dad, but after about ten minutes of arguing that Apollo could melt Hermes' face off with his mere awesomeness, Isaac said that he was going to take a break. He claimed he would be back in twenty, and decreed that if we didn't all behave (he looked pointedly at Travis and Connor) he would pray to his dad to never let us see the light of day again.

After he left, the Stoll brothers made a remark concerning Isaac's authority over them. They were counselors for Hermes cabin, after all. No son of Apollo was gonna tell them didly squat. That said, they'd be complete _weenies_ if they did what Isaac told them. So, naturally, they did not behave.

Isaac came back

and

was

_horrified. _

His bust of Apollo was beautiful—except for the massive elephant trunk that had spontaneously sprouted out the middle of the sculpture's face in his absence. It would be an understatement to say that Isaac was majorly pissed off. He would've pulled the very spines out the Stoll Brothers' asses if he could, but as always, Travis and Connor used their amazing ability to vanish whenever they'd finished committing their crimes.

"You all stay put!" He scowled, angrily storming out of the Arts and Crafts room to pursue the varmints who'd defiled Apollo's face. The door slammed shut, shaking the walls of the art room. Us Hermes kids looked on after him for a few seconds, but then we just continued messing around with the gooey pies of clay. However, the door burst open again, and all of our heads snapped to.

"You dorks behave! I'll be back after I gut your cabin counselors!" barked Isaac, his head poking through the door, his eyes narrowing hatefully at us.

Slam.

We all exchanged glances. Some rolled their eyes.

The door burst open once more.

"You all have a freestyle drawing assignment! Draw something depicting the death of Connor and Travis if ya want extra credit! You better have it done when I get back!"

Slam.

"Dumbass," I muttered.

A few people next to me snickered and laughed at this mild amusement. It seemed not many people cussed at Camp Half-Blood, but oh well. It was sort of nice that they thought I was funny, though, even just a little.

Within a few minutes, everyone had finished their sculptures. Everyone but me, that is. Whilst my cabin mates had chosen to sculpt easy things like cats or hearts, I had bitten off more than I could chew; I was presently in the process of attempting to make a decent piece of crap. At first my mound of clay looked like an angry, mutated tomato. But now my sculpture was going to be a vampire guy, baring his big bad evil-awesome fangs. By this time I'd already decided to call him Croobie the Blood Sipper. Because in my head he was wimpier than the normal vampire, so he couldn't quite be a blood sucker or a blood slurper. Nope. Croobie sipped. I rolled a thick string of clay in my hands and made a silly straw, and stuck it into Croobie's open mouth.

I laughed a little. His face was so fierce, with his eyes narrowed in anger and his lips pulled back into a menacing snarl, and yet he had this silly straw hanging out of his mouth. Soon a scalpel was in my hand and I was carving nostrils for Croobie. However, the little pieces of clay that resulted in my nose-drilling looked like little clay boogies. The first time one of them flicked on me I nearly screamed. Damn Croobie. Shooting boogers at me.

"That's not half bad," someone smirked.

I looked up from Croobie's outraged, booger-speckled face to whoever was talking to me. Simpering back at me was a guy, leaning over on the art table on his elbows, one of his long hands cradling his face. He was extremely pale, almost grey. This strange skin tone bore little to no contrast to his eyes, which were a barely-there shade of blue— two rings of stark dry ice. They stung at me through his now squinted eyelids. His hair was a very stringy and sickly excuse for blonde, like it wanted to be, but was too pathetic. Instead it was a bereft state of green that seemed to cling to his head, but still razored out in thin, wiry tufts.

'_Don't talk to him,' _some voice warned me.

I felt my jaw clench, but I continued sculpting to hide my sudden feeling of nervousness. My shoulders tensed slightly as I found myself scooting backward from him a little. I tried to do it slowly so that it wouldn't be noticeable, but evidently it was the exact opposite.

"What? Scared?" whispered the sickly kid. He seemed about my age, but his grave eyes made him out to be archaic.

"No," I grunted, looking straight at him. I couldn't hold his gaze for long; it sent shivers down my spine. The kid kept smiling at me; kept leaning forward. He tilted his head far off to one side as his eyes opened wider.

"Haha. I bet you're new here," He said.

"I am," I answered, confused. "But you should already know that."

He furrowed his eyebrows like he didn't understand that he was being stupid. I mean, although I hadn't noticed him before, he was in Hermes cabin. He must've seen me this morning when Chiron introduced me. Probably laughed at me, too, when I got hit in the head with a gummy bear.

I decided to 'whatever' Pale Guy when I stopped working on my sculpture and started to draw that "Death of the Stoll Brothers" picture Isaac had assigned us. The picture was well on its way. I was hunching down really close to the paper to sketch it, but Pale Guy was determined not to be ignored.

"Hey," He crowed under his breath. He saw me shoot a glance of meager acknowledgement at him, and then resumed grinning. I had my head hung down over my artwork, but I could feel Pale Guy lean in really close this time, his cold breath chilling the top of my forehead. "Your daddy says hi."

I lifted my head; my eyes glared at him over my glasses.

"You're not funny," I warned. "You don't even know me, let alone know my dad." My voice was almost shaking.

"Please," He sneered. "You'd be surprised."

I didn't know about him, but for me, this was getting old fast. I smacked down my pencil and sat up bolt upright, pinning the Pale Guy with my stare. The two Hermes kids on either side of me jumped in their seats at my sudden outburst. They then watched me and Pale Guy, puzzled.

"What do you want?"

"Calm down. I'm just bored, that's all. All I want is a little fun," He confessed, still in his hushed whisper. His eyes pulled into thin slits, near concealing those two rings of ice as he smirked disdainfully at me, "and I think you can help me."

I took this time to speculate. Pale Guy is bored. There's no one in the room supervising. And I'm the new kid that doesn't know shit.

"Look, I dunno what you want to _do, _but I'm not doing it," I blatantly declined. "I mean, if you want me to help you steal something or lock Chiron in the stables or whatever as some sort of… _initiation_ into the cabin, the answer is no. The last thing I need is some Hermes kid trying to—"

His eyes shot daggers at me.

"What makes you think I'm a son of Hermes?" He growled.

"Hm. I don't know. You're in this class, in this cabin, maybe?" I began to notice that the more I spoke to Pale Guy, the more attention I was getting from the other cabin members. I was guessing Pale Guy wasn't very popular among them, since all I kept hearing was '_what _is she _doing?!' _and 'It's just because she's new…'

His face cracked with that same mocking grin. "Let's try this again. What—makes—you—think—I'm a son of Hermes?"

I'd had enough of this. I nearly smacked the arm of the chick next to me, and gestured toward Pale Guy.

"Are you _hearing_ this douche bag?" I scowled, still targeting Pale Guy.

"Don't touch me!" she yelled, suddenly crying. She immediately scooted away, while everyone else did too. They all just shook their heads at me as they tried to comfort the chick, but found that she was okay again. I grimaced in disbelief.

Pale Guy chuckled in the meanwhile, muttering something about how stupid these kids were, and went back to leaning forward on the able. I didn't know quite what was going on, although I was frightened, thinking that I might have an idea as to what…

I asked another camper beside me if he was paying attention to this asshole talking crap about Hermes kids, but he was busy—busy picking his nose, that is. His head slowly turned to me, still with his finger shoved up his nostril probably tickling his brain. His eyes widened and his mouth hung open like a codfish.

Okay. Maybe Pale Guy was one up on us saying Hermes kids were stupid, but he was still a creepy asswipe.

"You! Can't you hear this guy—this—!" I nigh shouted in frustration. But the kid digging for gold didn't give me the time of day. He just put this horrified expression on his face, shook his head at me like I was crazy, and scooted a good six inches away from me, just as the other cabin members had. I heard him say something along the line of "weirdo." Weirdo! Ugh! Has everyone lost their mind! If they had any at all!

This whole time Pale Guy had been laughing his head off, smacking the table, making everyone's sculptures jump and their pencils unsteady and scribble off the page. Someone hissed at me to stop banging on the table, but I guess I was the only one who knew it wasn't me. He was laughing so hard, just going to town— then he stopped. His head that had been hanging slowly reeled backward so that I could see him glowering at me, his frigid stare shaking me.

"I'm here to help you," he murmured, leaning his crazed eyes forward. He stood up at the table.

"No, you're not. You're just some creep tryin' to pick on the new kid," I protested. "I guess all you Hermes kids just like to screw around with people."

He stood there, like a statue, and looked downward, a slow chuckle slithering out of him. His head fell back to his chest as he stood there, but his icy eyes shot up at me.

"COULD A SON OF HERMES DO THIS?" He screamed.

He removed himself from his seat, screaming curses in a language I couldn't understand. The words flicked off his tongue like poison and didn't stop, flooding his mouth until it overflowed with dark whispers. His body began shaking as he drew his arms around himself, squeezing his thin arms until they began turning red and his nails were cutting into his skin. Body writhing as he stood there, he suddenly stopped whilst his hands clenched at his ill colored hair. Then… his very image started wavering in and out of sight.

I… I didn't know what to do. My mouth was wide open as I sucked in a terrified breath, beholding the boy who was now barely there.

A fit of rage tore through him, overwhelming his withering body, thrashing in an inferno of insanity as he thrust his head up at the ceiling. He shredded his voice at the gods above him, releasing a vengeful scream.

Then, without any warning…his body burst apart in an explosion of pale dust, scattering like shards of sand.

He was gone.

I could hear myself stammering a sound of shock, but nothing legit came out. I looked around the art room at my cabin mates, expecting to see the same look of horror marring their faces, but… that was just it.

There was nothing there.

Nothing on their faces depicted an _inkling _of fear or even mere awe. None of what I saw had fazed them at all. Not the boy screaming, not him cursing, not him bursting apart. They had no idea what had just happened. My cabin mates' lack of reaction did nothing to calm me down. In fact, it only scared me more.

I pushed myself out of the table.

"Didn't any of you see that?!" I shouted. "Didn't you hear him—?"

"Jakobin, there wasn't _anybody _in front of you. Now stop acting like that, you're scaring some of us. It's not funny," one of my cabin mates warned me, their eyes glinting with hatred.

"I was _just talking _to him! Just now!" I pointed to where he'd been sitting. "Then he just got up and… and turned into sand…"

"Look, cut it out. We all saw you talking to yourself, trying to be all creepy, but it's not cool anymore. So just stop."

I tried to tell them what happened, but all of them continued to tell me I was being stupid; trying to draw attention to myself, trying to get everyone riled up.

"You know what, Jakobin?" One of them yelled, standing up themselves. "You are _really _getting on my nerves, and it's just your first day! Sit down and stop being a freak!"

The lights in the art room began flickering. Steadily, the room started getting darker and darker, as one by one, the lights above us fizzed out. Soon the only light was from outside: the fading sun sending rays of light so weak they barely fell through the windows. Some campers began clinging to each other in the dead quiet of the art room.

Others held tight in their seats, waiting for something to happen. The remaining clenched their fists and stood up from the table, as if they could fight the lights going out. In the quiet, there was an unspoken agreement amongst all the campers that it must be _me _doing all of this. A few of the cabin members glared at me for it, but I didn't budge. I was too overcome with fear.

"Jakobin… you stop doing this… RIGHT NOW!" a camper screamed.

But I couldn't focus on them. Somewhere above us, somebody… was _laughing_. Their menacing laughter resounded, bouncing back off the walls and piercing me. My head snapped to the ceiling. I saw him.

Pale Guy had reformed. Sprawled against the ceiling, his face was still scarred by that hideous, crooked grin. The cold irises of his eyes had receded into demonic, pinpoint-sized black dots. He twitched uncontrollably, his whole body cracking at the joints with each movement.

I didn't know what he was doing, but I knew he didn't mean well. Next thing I knew, I was trying to convince everyone we needed to get the hell out of the art room. None of them would listen to me. I could feel tears of frustration beating on the back of my eyes as I screamed at them, pointing to the spot on the ceiling where he was laughing…

Laughing, laughing, and laughing.

He laughed at how I was trying so desperately, but all for naught.

What little color he had in him faded until he was a horrid shadow of white, his grin stretching back farther and farther until it nigh devoured his disgusting face. He grew more grotesque as the smile was splitting his monstrous face open.

Laughing, laughing, and laughing.

A laughing corpse.

"SHUT UP!" I shrieked, turning hatefully to the damn Pale Guy. "LEAVE US THE HELL ALONE!"

The camper nearest me was a black haired boy who'd clearly had enough. With blinding speed, he pushed me onto the floor, telling me to shut my mouth. I cried out on the impact of hitting the ground, and clenched my eyes shut to hide from the frustrated boy. Some of the campers protested his actions and told him to stop, but it didn't keep him from coming back and yanking me up by my shirt. Being yanked sent my head spinning and my glasses clattering onto the ground.

"Look, you're scaring the shit out of everyone!" he hissed through his grit teeth. "I don't know who you are, but if this is your way of saying you don't like being with us, then you don't deserve to—"

A deafening _BANG_ shot through the room.

Campers screamed from the sound.

One of the pots on the shelves near the ceiling had suddenly combusted, its shattered terracotta shards rained down onto the floor, only to break into more pieces. We all stood frozen; we all stood stunned. A few seconds of terrified silence slipped past to consider what had just happened, but no more—

Because one after one, the clay pots began shattering.


	4. Chiron Makes an Apology

Chapter Four

All around the room, one right after the other, shards began hurling down on us. Everyone started screaming and rushed for the exits of the room in panic. They frantically pulled on the door, but it seemed to be welded shut. We were trapped.

The black haired boy had let me out of his grasp by this point to try to gain control of the situation, which gave me time to scramble for my glasses and put them back on. Then from above, the orb light fixtures began popping; the light bulb within exploded as sparks of electricity flickered in the air. The glass came thrashing downward, cutting up some kids in the process.

"The tables!" barked the black haired boy to the cabin members. He grabbed me harshly by the arm and nearly flung me under the marble tables. Miraculously, we all crammed together beneath our shelter, covering our heads. A few girls were crying as the debris relentlessly rained down on the table tops. I felt bad for some of the kids at the end of the table: they were striped with bloody cuts all along their arms and faces; it made me grateful that I hadn't been hurt. Everyone else was clenching their eyes shut or covering their ears as the shattering continued, hoping everything would stop before they got stabbed with a lethal shard.

Peals of laughter shook the room, but except for me, no one could hear it. The laughing corpse had dissipated again. We heard all the little pieces of the mosaic on the ceiling finally fall, beating and thundering down on the tabletops.

A huge crash cut across the room like a rapier. One of the glass cabinets blasted apart. Its pieces shot across the room, impaling the opposite wall. The contents collapsed onto the floor in another calamity of busting glass; ink and oil paint bled out of their broken bottles. Some of the shattering died down right then. We lifted our heads, hoping to see it was all over—but we were wrong. Terribly wrong.

Several hundred shards began floating around the room. They were all suspended menacingly in the air, hanging like death ornaments by invisible strings. We were facing an army of sharp, merciless blades. The shards were bewitched—all of them full of blood lust; all of them waiting… watching for a stray camper to test its edge on.

There was no way out. If we stayed under the table, we would die. If we tried to escape, we would die. The only way out rested with the bloodthirsty shards. The campers were racked with fear; some screamed in their moment of doom. The blades, as if on command, stopped floating. They immediately zoomed towards the tables; campers shrieked as they faced their imminent deaths—

The door burst open.

All the flying shards came to a dead halt and plummeted straight down onto the floor, shattering upon impact. Dropped.

The door had opened. And we had… amazingly survived.

Silence. Dozens of kids were trembling; uneven breaths were shaking their bodies. The relief hadn't set in yet. We were all too shocked.

From under the tables I could see three pairs of sneakers and a set of hooves.

They'd saved us! I wasn't sure how, but they saved us! Within seconds, some of the campers had regained a sliver of composure. They heaved in huge breaths of relief at last, finally allowing themselves to breathe.

"It's safe now—everyone out!" ordered the black haired boy.

We stumbled to our feet.

I panted gratefully. While we were getting out from under the tables, I tried to help a camper get up by reaching out my hand. But once they saw that it was me trying to help them, they gave a start and snatched their hand back from mine. I clenched my jaw. I tried to tell myself that it wasn't my fault, when inside… I knew it all was.

When we were all standing again, we faced what looked like a battlefield of glass casualties. The floor was hardly visible beneath the mass, razor-sharp heaps of them.

I turned to the open door which had saved our lives. In the doorway, I could see the horrified visages of our cabin counselors, Travis and Connor, the outraged Apollo kid, Isaac, and Chiron. Isaac marched angrily out of the doorway and right into the disastrous art room to start bludgeoning us with questions.

"What the hell just happened?" yelped Isaac, who was pointing to various places in the room all at once, as if he didn't know quite where the catastrophe had begun. His arms quivered with anger when he finally saw his sculpture with hundreds of shards of glass protruding out from it. Slowly he walked over to his slain bust of Apollo, and turned angrily back to us. "Who the hell did all of this?!"

Immediately all the kids of the Hermes cabin began yelling and screaming their own accounts of the incident, telling Isaac about how the lights started flickering and then all the sudden the world was ending as they knew it; the art room had just blown up during the process. Chiron tried to tell everyone to get out of the art room, but no one was listening. Meanwhile Isaac, no matter what explanation he heard (if he managed to hear any at all) began pointing his finger at us. He blamed us for the horrible death of Camp Half-Blood's art room, saying we were the most obnoxious cabin and the most annoying kids he'd ever met. Not only that, but as kids of Hermes, all of us were born liars anyway. Travis and Connor then rushed to our defense and got in between us and Isaac. The two started yelling at _him _for being a snotty Apollo kid, and for being an insensitive jerk for not first asking if all the campers were okay. Unfortunately, the argument proceeded into a giant insult contest, full of foreign curses and shouting and screaming until it was a huge, overblown, gigantic mess of chaos—

"SILENCE!!" bellowed Chiron.

Nobody moved. Nobody said anything.

His huge body lumbered gingerly through the debris and stood in front of us, his expression hard. He glared at Isaac and the Stoll brothers. "I am greatly disappointed, counselors," he whispered. All three of them hadn't a word to say, they simply sagged in shame.

Finally, Chiron turned to the rest of us, trying to remain calm.

"ONE of you," he said gravely. "ONE of you will tell me what the meaning of all of this is."

I didn't stand a chance. The entire body of the Hermes cabin moved away from me like I was the plague. The black haired boy spoke up, nodding his head at me.

"It was her, sir. She was getting everyone all riled up."

Chiron looked surprised. "Jakobin?"

I didn't have anything to say. How could I testify that there was some creepy kid harassing me, who _apparently _no one saw, but was responsible for the hell that was unleashed onto the Art room?

"Yes, sir," answered the black haired boy. "She was talking to herself while we were working in class. She kept saying things about how Hermes kids just liked to screw around with people."

Chiron didn't have any response, so the boy continued.

"Then she started screaming, and before we knew it, the room just started falling apart…"

Our activities director was paying attention, but something had caught his eye. Everyone held their breath as they watched him look over the black haired boy. Chiron began walking towards him. He clopped over, the weight of him crushing the glass beneath. The black haired boy backed up nervously as Chiron was only a few inches away. I was surprised to see that Chiron wasn't interested in the black haired boy. He instead gently moved the boy aside, and continued forward to the counters. The counter of interest was littered with broken bits of bottles; ink was splattered all over its surface and trickled off into a dark puddle on the floor. But this countertop where the black ink bled bore a message constraining me to the crime:

**I AM NOT A CHILD OF HERMES**

Chiron turned to me, his face drawn in disappointment.

"Jakobin, tell me you didn't do all of this—," he struggled. "This… this…!"

"Chiron, I… I swear, I was just…"

What could I say?

"I didn't do it!" I yelled. My fists balled at my sides, trembling in anger. I knew it wasn't the greatest statement to say in my defense, but it was all I had. That… and the whacked up truth. I tried anyway. "There was a guy that just started talking all this crap, Chiron, and then he disappeared and started to—"

"Shut up, liar!" yelled the black haired boy. I shot a hateful look at him, but he didn't care. Our glares grated against each other, flinty sparks flying. "The least you could do is tell Chiron the truth! There wasn't anyone talking to you; _none _of us talked to you! So quit with the story about your little imaginary friend, you _freak_!"

"ENOUGH!" snapped Chiron, one of his hoofs stomping onto the floor in outrage. "Everyone out of the art room this instant! I'll have no more of your arguments!"

We skulked out of the art room, shoving past each other in great frustration, trying not to have the soles of our shoes lacerated by any underlying blade of glass.

Once we had all herded ourselves out of the disaster that was the Art room, everyone turned immediately to Chiron. He was rigid and pensive; his four legs stiff. Sighing, he crossed his arms and regarded us with new orders. He made it relatively easy:

"Everyone back to your cabin. Take the injured to the Apollo children for healing." His voice was soft; it only made me feel worse.

There were a few murmurings of comfort among the crowd as they all rotated in a body to begin voyaging down the hill. My shoulders sagged as I went trudging after them, but I was stopped in mid-step.

"Not you, Jakobin."

I spun around. "What?" I scowled, "You want to ask me questions, too?"

Chiron's mouth tightened as he slowly neared me. I crossed my arms and glanced resentfully over my shoulder to my cabin mates who were already at the base of this hill… going right on… right on without me.

"I didn't believe him, you know."

I lifted my eyes to meet Chiron's image against the evening sky. It was only interrupted by my brown strands of bangs. I would've swept them to the side any other time, but life was less scary when I was peeking out at it through the tiny thread-sized breaks in my hair. That… and I didn't want to face Chiron. I had only arrived this morning and already I had screwed everything up.

"Yeah, well, you're not going to believe me either," I grumbled.

I saw his face turn away from me and rise to the purple sky. He flexed one of his uneasy hands and took a deep breath.

"Walk with me."

I was reluctant. "I don't think I should."

"There is plenty that we think we shouldn't do, but that doesn't keep us from doing it, now, does it?" He smiled. I wished I had it in me to do the same, but I didn't. Too many insults of 'freak' and 'liar' were ringing in my head; they hindered me from doing much more than granting Chiron's small request. But it does bring me a little happiness to say that at least I did so without further complaint.

--

Well, I'll say it: I spilled. Maybe flooded. By the time I was finished telling Chiron the truth, all he could do was furrow his eyebrows at me just as he'd done this morning when I denied being a demigod. We were in a small meadow beside Camp Half-Blood's lake; I was watching the pier where naiads shifted out from the water and ran across onto the land. Curled against my chest were my legs, on top of them were my folded arms. I meddled with the sleeves of my hoodie.

"So… just send me home, Chiron," I murmured. "I ruined your art room on the first day. You don't need to keep me here. You know that."

"Pah. You're not going anywhere, Jakobin."

I looked up and glowered at him. He didn't deserve it, but I did it all the same—

"I don't belong here!"

Chiron's hooves made an aggravated shuffle in the grass as he leaned forward to me, his voice rising slightly in protest.

"_No_, Miss Blane! Whatever you _saw _didn't belong here! _You_, however, are quite the contrary!"

I groaned and went back to fidgeting and tugging on my sleeves in suppressed anger. Strangely, I almost wished he hadn't believed me. Now I was stuck here for the summer in a camp I'd already managed to destroy. Well, some facet of it, anyway. Chiron just inhaled deeply.

"Jakobin."

"Yes?"

"Forgive me."

My eyes pierced him. What in the hell was he apologizing for? I was the one who was in all this trouble. When Chiron met my baffled expression, he glanced downward, unable to face me, although I didn't know why.

Chiron's voice was melancholy. "I'm apologizing for making a very large mistake."

I coughed. "_You're _apologizing." I yanked out a piece of grass, crushing it.

"Yes, Jakobin. Because I've failed to be a good host. You're already in trouble and I'll have to defend you somehow against Mr. D when he hears about this," he took in another breath. "I've been letting some very personal things get in the way of my job lately… I'm worried about a friend, who's yet to arrive at camp. I'm unaware as to why, but it has me… terrified.

You see, these last few years, huge problems have been bearing down upon Camp Half-Blood, beginning with one of my friends. We've had a falling out with one of our own campers as well. Since then, Mr. D and I have been wary of letting anyone into this camp. Needless to say now, I'm worried for you. I've not a clue what it was that you saw taking place in the art room, but I have a… a bad feeling."

These small pauses in his speech, on the other hand, worried _me. _I asked what kind of problems the Camp had been having. Unfortunately, all Chiron said was that I shouldn't think anything of it— not now, anyway, because this wasn't even the end of my first day. Plus, it didn't have anything to do with me or who I was, and that was the big question right now.

"We don't let mortals in, Jakobin," explained Chiron. "Camp Half-Blood is invisible to normal humans and monsters. If you weren't one of us, you wouldn't even be able to see this place."

"But wait—then how did my taxi driver get me here?"

Chiron grinned. "How, indeed."

"He was a… a…?"

"He must have been a satyr. They're out in the human world, searching for any sign of new demigods, and they bring them here. We call them our Searchers." Chiron cleared his throat in that gentlemanly way, and then resumed. "But I have much to speak of with your Searcher in particular. I believe it will help in your Determining."

"But I, I…," I uttered.

"Have we forgotten my apology so quickly, Jakobin? For letting my worries get in the way of what's needed to be done?"

I quieted. Hundreds of broken blades of grass lay dead on the jean of my knee. I gently pushed them back onto the ground. My hands dug into the dirt a little as I pushed my body up to stand. Once I had accomplished that, I faced Chiron again.

"No," I replied. "No, I didn't forget."

"I'm glad to hear it, then."

As Chiron began guiding me to the Mess Hall, I knew had to start somewhere.

I had to start believing in _something._

If he could believe me enough to tell his superior that the demolition of the art room was not my fault, I think I owed it to him to begin believing I was a Half-Blood. Someday I'd ask him to forgive me for the same reasons. My doubts were in the way of me being able to do something Chiron thought was very important:

Believing…

in myself.


	5. Camp Half Blood Meets Jeremy Blake

Chapter Five

The Mess Hall wasn't a building. It was an open pavilion. No ceiling. No walls. Just pretty marble pillars and twelve tables. Some lanterns were strung around and torches were welded into the pillars to light up the dining area. I thought it would've been roomy and airy enough for any cabin, but it wasn't.

If you thought that the Hermes's _cabin_ was crowded, you have another thing coming. Perhaps you would have a better idea of the Hermes table if you imagined trying to squeeze thirty or forty kids into a goldfish without the use of a blender or complicated genetics. _That_ was what the Hermes table was like.

Only worse.

Because you see, since the whole Art Room ordeal, everyone had decided I was a hoodoo. The intensity of this belief was so immense that the entire population of the Hermes Cabin crammed themselves completely onto one side of the table, going so far as to sit directly _on _the table, in each others' laps, and on the floor all so that they wouldn't have to sit beside me. As long as it meant not sharing the same long bench on which my jinxed ass was located, they were willing to suffer any discomfort known to man—or monster, or god, or half-blood for that matter. Even the kids who were lucky enough to have a microscopic spot on the bench opposite me were trying desperately to fuse butts with each other just to fit.

I squinted grudgingly down at my plate, unable to eat with all their eyes clawing at me again. I hated Pale Guy at this point for making me suffer like this on my first day, but now I had to hand it to him for deciding Hermes kids were stupid. Although I was sitting blatantly in front of them, they continued whispering that I was a freak-oid who could wiggle her fingers at anything and make shit go ka-blam.

"Wako Jako, that's what she is," someone whispered.

A thousand snickers and giggling fits ensued. I heard someone get punched in the arm. The puncher growled to knock it off. Slowly, the laughter died down, but was revived when someone had the novel idea of pelting me (ugh!) with a goddam bean.

Ranch style.

I could smell the bean in my hair as it sluggishly slid down and plopped off the side of my bangs. My cabin mates were in an uproar, slapping their knees. I would love to say that I told them to step off; that I said that I was about ready to smash their faces in… but I didn't. I wouldn't know how to fight anyway. Instead, I lashed out at the innocent:

I glared at a lone baby green pea on my plate.

Damn you, green pea, damn you. I hereby damn you in place of all the kids throwing barbecue beans at me!

I stabbed the pea to finish off my curse, but it popped out from under the fork and rolled away onto the ground in fear. It seemed that the Hermes kids weren't the only ones who believed I was a hoodoo.

Of course, my eyes returned to my still untouched plate, ignoring any further snickering of my 'cabin mates', if I was allowed to identify them as such. I entertained myself by turning my back (which was accompanied by spurned remarks from my cabin mates, as if _I_ was the one shunning _them_) and watching the other cabins enter the Pavilion.

The first group was a cluster of six laughing and chattering kids. The majority of them were blonde, with the exception of two brown-haired chicks. Even in this light, I especially noticed they all had these serious, stormy colored eyes in spite of their sunny disposition. They sat down at the table. A few of them looked over at us perplexed, not understanding why there was such a terribly obvious imbalance at the Hermes table. Their chins grew wrinkly as they raised their eyebrows, and shrugged.

These kids were flanked by barbarians. A dozen ruthless looking dudes (and chicks who looked like dudes) stampeded into the Pavilion, their greasy hair flailing in their race to the table. A large boy pounced onto his bench and stood up in his seat, letting out a rough cry of "YAH, YAH, YAH!" The members of his cabin him echoed his gruff warrior cry:

"YAH, YAH, YAH—" and all sat simultaneously in a perfectly military thunder.

Dorks. I shook my head at them.

Another large cabin entered. The majority of them this time were blonde or red headed. They seemed as happy-go-lucky as the first group of campers, but when they spotted our table they all laughed at us like we were fools. A few swatted their hands dismissively, as if to say "Pah! Look at those Hermes kids in trouble, as always." I identified Isaac among them, his strawberry blonde hair glinting in the torch light. This, then, was the Apollo Cabin.

Thereafter an assortment of campers joined us in the Pavilion. They all split into different tables. Eight were at one table—the girls were checking their lipstick in their heart-shaped compacts, the boys re-gelling their hair until it stuck up nail straight in surgically precise spikes. I'm sure if you touched it you'd bleed, given that they didn't lob their gel bottle at you first for ruining their 'do.

Two boys with jet-black hair seated themselves at a table which encompassed a large golden chair. Its arms were laced with ivy vines cascading to the floor in neat curls.

At another area, four burly young men thudded into their spots. Heavy handed, their great hands pounded onto the table. The impact caused the metal looped in their ears, eyebrows, or lips swivel; the scrappy trinkets that dangled on their assorted leather belts rattling. One of the dudes, a dark-skinned guy with multicolored dreads, was squinting his eyes so hard I mistook them for being shut, but I was proven wrong when his head turned sharply at me. I ducked.

The last cabin was a group of five girls and four boys—all of them brunette and wearing the all-too-familiar SUPPORT THE ALMIGHTY ACORN T-shirt Connor was wearing. One of them had large circular glasses and wavy hair growing rank to her shoulders, a huge sunflower smiling where it was wedged between her ear and her head. Each of them seemed to bounce into their seats and talked quietly amongst themselves. They were interrupted when a storm of spit wads rained down on them from the Barbarian Kid Cabin.

"TAKE THAT, YA HIPPIES!" One of the Barbarian kids chortled mockingly. The rest of the ugly brutes in their cabin joined them, since they seemed to all share one tiny brain. But the girl with a sunflower in her hair scrounged up the wads of paper that the Barbarian Cabin had thrown at her and her friends.

My face pinched up. Grody…

But in an instant, I saw why. When she touched the little wads of paper, they un-crumpled themselves and straightened; each little piece grew thicker until it rounded out and turned all brown and stalk-y. I saw that she had created an army of little midget trees. The Tridgets hopped away from her and screeched, beating the bark of their chests. They released a demented warrior cry that escaped in a high pitched: 'ALALALALALA!' With that, they jumped into the air and whizzed over to the Barbarian table. With what the repulsing faces of all the grimy and rebellious-looking kids, I never would have imagined they all could scream like four year old girls. Have I mentioned my incredible ability of never failing to be wrong?

"Take THAT, Neanderthals!" Sunflower Chick giggled. She grinned smugly at her table while the Barbarian Kids frantically squashed the Tridgets on the floor or swatted them away.

I got the impression that Camp Half-Blood was more complicated than I thought. Evidently not everyone got along here. Their only similarity may be that they were all Half-bloods and nothing more.

Dismissing the thought, I turned back to my group, who was looking longingly at their plates of untouched food. Everyone was waiting on Chiron and this "Mr. D" to show up. Wood nymphs and dryads had already finished passing around all the food to each cabin and everyone was growing impatient with our dinner taunting us with its delicious scent of marinade and barbecue sauce, buttered vegetables, and the shine that ripe apples, grapes, and strawberries reflected on our plates. The nymphs had gone to the far side of the Pavilion and ignited a blazing fire, whose smoke stacks rose into the night air in pale ribbons.

We heard some quibbling from the far side of the dining area.

"Curses, Chiron! I'll be stuffed into Hades' underpants before I...!" a voice bickered. Hades' underpants? I shuddered at the thought. Weren't the gods nude-y under their toga-thing-ish-ness? If they decided to wear a toga at all, with all the art I saw of the Olympians. Not much time was given to me to ponder the clothing (or lack thereof) the Olympian gods when Chiron clopped into the Mess Hall.

"Pssh! 'bout time, ya think?" one of the kids at my table sneered.

"He was probably busy playing My Little Pony with Mr. D," another scoffed.

My eyes bulleted to their direction. The kid's head reared back in disgust, and then turned away from me in a grudging silence. Whatever. At least they had shut up about Chiron. Speaking of which, he was… well, speaking.

"Forgive us the delay, everyone," Chiron said in his great voice.

"_Please_," groaned the man who followed thereafter. "Speak for yourself."

Mr. D was not a pleasant looking man, to say the least. His cheeks were two overripe peaches that sagged in fatty glory next to his scowling mouth. He might have been more handsome if he smiled, since his hair was a shiny pitch black, but he was too busy looking like the whole Pavilion reeked of rotten eggs and donkey poop. His lips were in a tight pinch, pursing deeply in a corner as he was repulsed by the imaginary stench. Unfortunately, it doesn't stop there. Mr. D's body wasn't much better, since he was the shape of half-deflated balloon: still circular, but too shriveled to be perfectly round. Over it he wore a hideous tiger-patterned Hawaiian t-shirt.

Mr. D then moodily nestled himself into the golden chair in between the two boys; the vines which had been lounging on its arms suddenly sprouted hundreds of little clusters of grapes, glistening in the torch light. I then saw the resemblance in the two black haired boys and our Camp Director: Mr. D was the two boys' dad, only they didn't look like something a cow spit up. They were sons of Dionysus, god of wine and… merriment? Yeah, ok. If the Greeks say so. The dude looked like a creep. How he was a god beats me, because Connor and Travis were right about the whole 'you're up shit creek if you meet a god who isn't Mr. D' thing. He looked like the only thing he'd do was shake his pudgy fist and yell at us stupid kids to get the hell off his lawn before he called the cops, and then walk off muttering about prune juice.

But back to the point.

Chiron was standing beside their table looking troubled. At first I thought it was because he didn't have anywhere to sit, but I caught myself. Chiron was much too big for any table. He'd have more luck trying to sit on Mr. D's lap and eat dinner. That might have been a better idea for Chiron to squash him under his horsey behind anyway, considering what Mr. D was about to do. Presently, Chiron was going through a gallery of gestures and motions, twitching his head, and making what I call 'poop faces' to Mr. D until finally he sighed and threw his arms down, defeated, and turned to us.

"WELL EVERYONE," projected Chiron. "Mr. D has something to tell you!"

"Mm!" grunted Mr. D.

He resentfully lurched from his golden chair and stood up sluggishly, as if it took _so _much energy to lift himself to his feet. His face pinched up even more as he suddenly became very lucid and proper.

"Well, good evening, you little brats," sneered Mr. D, using his hands freely as he spoke. None of the kids seemed to notice they were being insulted. I guess this was just typical Mr. D behavior and they were used to it by now. Mr. D shrugged sarcastically. "I _suppose _I have an announcement to make."

So everyone waited, of course, for Mr. D… again.

"We have a new little brat here at camp Half-Blood, but I can't say I'm particularly happy about it. Not that I would be even if they _weren't _a little brat like the lot of you, but oh well. Don't mind me. Not that you do. Anyway!" He blustered, jiggling his fat head. Then his eyes pinned the campers, a terrible rage hiding behind his black eyes as his mouth smeared over someone's name. "STAND UP, _JEREMY BLAKE_!"

Jeremy Blake?

I looked around, waiting for some guy to stand up. I was excited! Someone else here was new. I wasn't by myself!

"Uh… that's you, Jakobin," one of my cabin mates said stupidly.

My left eye squinched up.

"What?"

"Yeah, that's you, man. Just stand up," they said.

I stammered to say that that wasn't my name, but suddenly I found my legs swing over the bench. I screamed, not knowing why they did, but soon I was shut up. The entire audience of Camp Half-Blood raised their eyebrows at me.

I… I was standing up… how… how…?

I was frozen, I couldn't move. My arms were somehow locked behind my back. From here I knew my legs were held tight together by something holding me in its iron clasp. The same went for my arms. Desperately, I attempted to wriggle and sit down to escape the eyes of the crowd, but I couldn't. My legs were straight stiff under me. I was trapped.

"I do hate to repeat myself, Jeremy. If you don't start doing things the first time I ask, I'll just have to _make _you," grinned Mr. D. "So. Say hello, Mister Blake."

"_Crammit, it's Jakobin Blane!_" I grumbled, still struggling to break free from whatever was holding me. Then… something slithered onto my shoulder. It was… a vine. A freakin' grape vine! They were all keeping me in check where I stood. Where the sprouted from, I had no idea, but I was definitely having second thoughts about Mr. D. So maybe he wouldn't just yell at you to get off his lawn and call the cops. He'd trip you with his satanic vines into a fresh pile of dog shit first, _and then _call the cops.

"Ugh. What is it you kids say these days? Oh yes. 'Who – gives – a – crap?'" Mr. D said indifferently. "Not me, young man, that's who doesn't 'give-a-crap.' Now say hello, you little whelp."

Damn him!

"Holy—I'm a girl!" I snarled.

Mr. D jeered. "HA! This is rich. I've never seen a girl with such a garishly masculine hair cut. Well. I guess you learn something new every day, then! Girls can sport boy hair. I imagine boys can sprout boobs!"

His grape vines slinked off my arms and legs, leaving me back in control of my body. I sprinted the short distance back to my seat at the Hermes table and covered my face. It was scalding hot in my hands.

"It looks like a radish," someone whispered.

I didn't doubt them.

"Whatever. I just wanted everyone to see who was responsible for the destruction of Camp Half-Blood's art room, that's all," shrugged Mr. D nonchalantly.

"WHAT!" The Sunflower Chick sprung up from her seat in outrage.

"Time for dinner!" cut in Chiron. Sunflower Chick 'humph-ed' back into her seat and brooded, dissatisfied. In the meanwhile, Chiron immediately motioned for the naiads to make another round to the cabins. This time we were passed silver goblets. I received one filled with—

Air. Oh yeah. Wholesome.

All the other campers took theirs thankfully from the naiads and began to whisper; although this time I didn't know what about. I – felt – gypped! Everyone else had an actual beverage in their goblet, whilst I, on the other hand, had been passed nothing. Oh, whatever. I suppose it's safe to say that not only did they treat me like a newbie, a hoodoo, a dude, but now, I was also a fatass. My head hung a little further downward over my plate, awaiting the salvation of being able to eat dinner so I could stab a family of baby green peas still on my plate.

Soon, Camp Half-Blood had returned to prattling, and everyone was excited and happy again. Even the Hermes Cabin, with the obvious exception of myself. Kids went back to smiling and laughing, nudging each other over inside jokes while they waited for dinner to start.

And (ahem) by the gods, it _did_ start.

Chiron hammered his hoof down on the Pavilion floor, raising his goblet.

"_To the gods!" _He cheered.

Camp Half-Blood echoed him as their raised their goblets, "To the gods!"

Thus began the momentous act of stuffing our faces with anything and everything on the table. The Barbarian kids ravaged their plates of meat; the Hippie Cabin tore into the stalks of broccoli; the Prissy Guys pecked at their mashed potatoes while the girls didn't touch their plates at all; my cabin, naturally, catapulted beans across the table at each other, while I was in the process of establishing a baby green pea holocaust.

Within minutes, an hour slipped by. Sounds contradictory, but that's what happened. At least, according to me. But I noticed something strange. For, somehow during the midst of the stuff-my-face-till-I-can't-feel-circulation-in-my-left-arm euphoria, everyone had salvaged at least one item on their plate—namely, the most delicious one. I was confused. Frickin' crazies! Not eating all their food!

I had been brain-beaten by Daddy into eating everything on my plate, for I greatly dreaded his lecturing. These lectures never failed to be about how children were starving in the world, children who didn't have fingers to pick up their food with, or even toes for a substitute, and kids who would eat raw onions like apples because they were so hungry. While I did feel bad for these armless, toeless, onion-gnawing children, I did not want to hear Daddy's rants about them every day of my life, which gave me more than plenty a reason to eat everything given to me at dinner.

So, to the mortification of my cabin mates, the only thing left on my plate was a tiny, runty grape.

"You. Are so. Dead," Connor informed me.

"What'd I do _now?_" I groaned.

"You're supposed to leave a portion of food for the gods!" Travis hissed.

"How was I supposed to know? You were all too busy shunning me!"

"Well, we're not shunning you anymore so at least you know you're dead," Travis shrugged. "Good knowin' ya, Wako Jako. Send us a postcard from the Fields of Punishment."

"Fields of Punishment? Oh, I see. So I'm taking the express to The Underworld because I wasn't letting the gods have a nip at my food? I thought they were the _Olympians_, not Helen Keller surrender-your-mashed-potatoes-or-you-become-Cerberus's- squeak-toy. No. Just. No," I objected.

"Yes, just _yes_! They're gods who should be feared and obeyed; gods who are going to put you on a weenie roast for eternity, and when that's over, they'll burn you some more!" argued Connor. But our delightful little dispute about my fate concerning the wee grape was interrupted.

"Uh… guys… everyone's already gone to like, the fire, man. The fire," one of our cabin mates said.

Travis and Connor scowled concurrently and got up with their 'offerings' of grilled chicken breast and two slices of brisket. I did the same, walking carefully to make sure my pleasant little grape didn't roll clean off my plate.

I followed them to the line in front of the great fire which the nymphs had ignited at the end of the Pavilion. Everyone was throwing in their dinner portion. I was last.

My eyes shifted around to make sure no one was watching.

I tilted my plate a little. The tiny grape plunked in.

Then I ran like hell.


	6. Don't Turn Off The Lights

Chapter Six

After a big sing along in Camp Half-Blood's amphitheater, all the campers had returned to the cabin commons around yet another huge campfire, eating smores.

I didn't join them.

I returned to the Hermes cabin, completely bummed. During the amphitheater event, Mr. D had approached me in all his saggy-faced snobby-ness and told me that he pitied me.

* * *

"Pity?" I had repeated.

"Yes. I pity you greatly, Jeremy," Mr. D had confirmed, obviously faking a concerned tone as he had been stuffing a Butterfinger into his fleshy face. The little yellow flakes crumbled and sprinkled onto me. I squinted.

"I saw that insolent little grape you put into the fire."

Fleck. Fleck. Fleck.

Mr. D had grunted. "Yes, you thought I wasn't watching, didn't you. Ha! Well. Shows what you know, doesn't it? But back to the point."

Fleck.

"I pity you so greatly that for the complete destruction of the art room—"

Fleck. Fleck. Fleck.

"—and the murder of an innocent grape, I'm going to—

Fleck.

"—put you—"

Fleck.

"—on Toilet Duty for the next four weeks."

I was cringing in my skin. I somehow managed a nod and ran away to the nearest bathroom to get all that shit off me. Disgusting.

* * *

It was only now that it dawned on me. Toilet Duty. Starting tomorrow morning. Everyday, by myself, I was going to be the personal scrubber of the entire camp's ass cushions. Hell no. I didn't know what Mr. D considered mercy, but I had trouble seeing any 'pity-driven' generosity in slapping me with Butterfinger crumbs and then saying 'yes, you poor child. Go scrub the shit bowls.'

I turned on the light in the room of the Hermes cabin. No one was in. Dragging myself over to the window, I peeked out into the night. All the campers gathered around the campfire in that warm, yellow light, talking and laughing. One of them had a flashlight, telling a ghost story while the girls hugged on each other and feigned terror. I moved away from the window. Wasn't I the new kid? Shouldn't there at least be someone around to introduce me to people or show me around? But then, I guess even if there was one, they wouldn't want to be my guide anyway. I had freaked everyone out.

I went searching through the mountains of clothes and linty gummy bears, socks and running shoes—where'd my backpack go? I rummaged through everything, even returned to the smelly sock corner, but I couldn't find it. However…

Up the rickety ladder to my graffiti-ed bunk bed I climbed, and lo and behold—my backpack was there, in all its checkerboard and printed banana glory.

Scrambling into the old bunk bed, I snatched my backpack into a deep embrace. Ah, wonderful, sweet, sweet, non-shunning backpack. I kissed it. I believed my backpack to be as magical as Dora the Explorer's. I could pull out anything I needed—gum, underwear, Michael Jackson. I had it all. Well, maybe not Michael Jackson (who I now shared my nickname 'Wako Jako' with) and… maybe not gum… but still. I had the underwear part down pat.

Out of my backpack, I pulled a big black and neon blue shirt for a local hardcore metal band and slipped it on along with some plaid pajama pants. Then I retrieved my Bunnicula blanket from a bulging pocket of my backpack. At last, I was in bed, comfortable for the first time all day. Plus, there were no other campers around. I shoved my backpack to the foot of my bed with my toes; then proceeded to burrow into my blanket like a ground mole.

From under the blanket, the light from the fans overhead hazed through the fabric. I remembered when I was younger, that Daddy would be right next to me under the covers with his flashlight. He would be reading fairy tales of the Brothers' Grimm, eyes sparkling while his mouth delivered the stories where little men tore themselves in half and young girls cut off their own fingers. The tales were terrifying, but somehow, Daddy could always color them beautiful with his voice so that I hardly ever noticed. It was only in those soft moments, when his whispers were reading me into a sleep and the smooth scratches of turning pages began trailing away, that I thought my mom was crazy for trying to force me to make friends. When I had Daddy, I didn't need for anyone else…

He would then close the book and wriggle out of the covers, but leave on the light. My eyes would be barely open, and he'd smile at me as he stood in the doorway, saying—

"What the shit! Why are the lights on?"

What? That's not what Daddy said. I bolted up out of my daydream. Down below, the Hermes kids had returned from outside, all of them looking around. They were the ones who'd asked why the lights were on, not my memory of Dad. Travis and Connor broke through the throng and realized what was going on. So did I—because I had been falling into a nice sleep, thinking that Camp Half-Blood was all a big ugly nightmare, but it wasn't. On the other hand, the Hermes cabin _was_.

"Who's in here?" One of the campers asked.

"Oh," droned Travis, half laughing as he jerked his head in my direction. "It's just Jakobin. She's up there." Their eyes elevated up to me; sitting up in bed with my hair all messed up in the shape of a rabid chicken. They scowled dismissively.

Travis and Connor trudged through the usual wreckage of the cabin floor to their bunk bed that was directly next to mine. Everyone else poured in through the entrance to find their spot on the floor. Some of the kids were reminiscing over what went on at the Campfire, while others were complaining about me. Connor and Travis fought over who was sleeping on bottom bunk tonight, and Travis lost. He climbed up to the top and peered over his shoulder at me with his glinting eyes. I shrunk away from him.

Meanwhile, Connor was down below, leaning against the pole of his bunk while everyone got situated, or left with their backpacks to go to the bathroom to change.

I brooded up in my bed, dodging what I thought were the amused glances I got from Travis. Of course, I could never be sure with his damn bangs always covering them like a raggedy curtain. He was probably thinking about how he could torture me even more so than I already had been today. Eventually I just shoved my blanket over my head and curled up into a ball. He laughed at me.

Oh yeah. You laugh. You laugh, Travis, but you just wait. My Bunnicula blanky can be pretty fierce, while useless and lame it may seem.

I watched down below over the side of my mattress, where everyone was snuggling up in their sleeping bags or putting on socks after returning from changing. Far off, the black haired boy from the art room was squished up against the door of the cabin. The boy's eyebrows knitted into a serious expression as he scanned the room, like at any moment, one of the campers was going to pluck a knife out of their pocket and rob him of his kidney or something. Whatever the case, he was sharp.

"So are all you little floor burritos comfortable?" Connor snorted jokingly.

The campers of the Hermes cabin managed an inharmoniously joyful 'Yes!' in reply and went back to watching him. I muffled a giggle as Connor continued to smile at everybody. They really did look like a big family of burritos, all flopping on the floor in their sleeping bags.

"I see. Well. All of you have had a pretty…" He squinted out of the corner of his eyes, trying to choose the right words; no doubt he was trying not to hurt my feelings. "…_interesting _day, I think. So get some rest because we all have a wrestling match tomorrow against the Apollo and Athena cabins, okay?"

"Uh… don't we have another class?" a dumb voice inquired.

"Yeah, we got another class. I think I signed us up in the archery range."

This statement was received with a dreadful groan.

"I know, I know, quit complainin'!" yammered Connor, shifting his weight to one gangly leg. The tiny moles on his face seemed to dance when he went back to grinning again. "But! See this as blessing from the gods in disguise," he continued. "Because tomorrow's archery class is _also _with the Apollo cabin. Who knows? Maybe a few you will have some bad aim and oh, I dunno, _accidentally _shoot Isaac in the ass, or something."

Snickering and snorting ensued.

Connor chuckled. "Eh heh. Anyway, lights out everybody—"

**_"NOOO!!"_** I screamed. I thrust off my blanky, shooting up nail straight in my bed in terror. "Don't turn off the lights! I… I-I can't sleep without the light on!"

Connor's eye twitched at me and his face pinched up in disbelief. Travis broke into a giggle fit as he slid to the edge of his mattress, pointing at me.

"_HA _HA!" He laughed.

The rest of the cabin followed his lead and giggled a little. Connor furrowed his eyebrows at me.

"You're _afraid _of the _dark?!_" He exclaimed. "You're what? Twelve? Thirteen?"

"Fourteen!" I corrected.

"Fourteen! Then you should be ashamed of yourself, you weenie! Grow some hair on your chest!"

"_I'M A GIRL!" _

"Whatever, Jeremy," sighed Connor, waving his hand at me.

I was fuming. "That's not my name!" I barked, but he wasn't listening. Travis just kept on grinning. Connor ignored my objections and nodded to the black haired boy at the door, shrugging off the string of curses I spat at him.

"Yeah, Logan. Turn off the lights, please?" Connor asked. Logan heeded him and stood up to carry out the request.

"No—NO!" I pleaded.

He flicked the switch.

I screamed as the darkness plopped down on me.

"GODS DAMMIT! SHUT UP, JAKOBIN!" a harsh voice glowered, which I recognized immediately as Logan's. I was too petrified to argue.

The room became quiet as everyone settled into a quiet slumber after a few minutes. Everything was calm. Slight snoring from the campers spread evenly into the air, harmonizing with the sound of steady breathing from the other kids who had fallen asleep. Soft humming of the fans overhead melded into the rest of the silence along with the occasional rustle of a cabin mate shifting in their sleeping bag. Just outside, the tiny chirp of crickets teemed in the forest.

And amidst all the stillness, in the middle of this peaceful scene, was me—scared shitless and trembling in my bed, clinging to my blanket for dear life.

With my eyes squinched shut, I whimpered in my bed. So I was a fourteen-year-old weenie. Leave me alone. My blanket was drawn tightly over me, its corners clutched in my hands as I tried to focus on happy thoughts, but to no avail. Horrid images clawed at my mind, scratching and biting.

Suddenly, I had scrounged up an amazing amount of courage. I was about to do something momentously brave.

I blinked.

There was little difference in the dark, except now with my eyes open I could see shadows lurking behind the mounds of junk, snickering at me in the corners of the room, slithering under the other bunk beds and hissing at me on the ceiling.

I whispered for them not to hurt me, but I could have sworn they all laughed. My eyes widened in fear as I felt the weight of the darkness crushing me there in my own bed. Covering my eyes with my hands, my jaw tightened as I tried to tell myself to get a damn grip… but my mind was shaking, ensnared and tangled in fear. I felt tears form in my eyes again. I knew I was being stupid, being a wimp, but I had always had this fear. In a few minutes, it would all start, like it had when I was smaller. I would start hearing them talking, asking me why, why, why—why this, and why that, and I didn't have any answers for them—whoever they were.

_Rustle. _

My head snapped sharply at the sound. Nothing.

Probably just a camper moving around.

I grappled my blanket in attempt to get a hold of myself. The darkness all over the room crawled; it's constant, quiet screaming tortured me. Rogue reverberations of nonexistent laughter fogged the black emptiness until I couldn't take it any longer. Clearly in my minds eye, the sick nightmare of the Pale Guy's ghost crawling around on the ceiling haunted me. The hellish grin that split his face open scraped me; his laughter ringing—ringing in malicious peals. I covered my ears, fighting against the desperate urge to scream out for help, when I knew perfectly well that there was nothing wrong. Everything seemed to whir around in a reel of darkness, an enormous carnival of black spinning me and tossing me. Fingers wringing at my hair, I could hear my own breath quickening in fear, the monstrous thudding of my own heartbeat racking my chest. I… I couldn't ask anyone to help me. They would all just yell at me and hate me more than they already did. In my panic, I drew my shaking arms around myself, struggling for control. I curled up in last resort, tears finally rushing down my face, as I tried to comfort my frantic self. The fear was so immense my body couldn't take it… so in hushed silence, I wept in my weakness and inability to overcome it. No one would help me… no one would…

_Click._

Please don't hurt me… Please, please don't hurt me…

"Jakobin?"

The voice sounded concerned. Somehow, my eyes opened slightly.

There was… light. It was dim, but it was light. It got brighter as I looked more to the left. In quiet shock, I rolled myself to the other side of the bed, my blanket still covering me up to my nose. I couldn't believe it, but it was Travis in his bunk bed across from me. A flashlight was wedged his armpit, shining brightly.

Ew.

He was rubbing his eyes, squinting until he adjusted himself out of sleep. He groggily knit his eyebrows at me, then raised them.

"Dude…are you crying?"

Shit! I quickly smothered my face in my blanket and sat up, still wiping them.

"No, I was just… having trouble sleeping, that's all."

"You sure? Because you're eyeliner is runnin' and stuff."

"Maybe I like it that way!" I retorted, finishing the final wipe. I crossed my arms and glared into the wall across from me. Why did he care anyway if I was crying? All he was going to do was laugh anyway. Just like everyone else did. Do that infernal '_HA _HA!'

Although I had to admit that I was relieved he turned on that flashlight.

"Mm Hmmm. Having nightmares about that imaginary friend, I bet," He taunted, rolling onto his stomach. Propping himself up on his elbows and cradling his face with his hands, he smirked at me. I grunted.

"I don't _have_ imaginary friends, you… you…!"

"Come on! Bring it, Wako Jako; bring it!" He laughed.

"You… you hot glass of ASS MILK!" I nearly shouted.

Ok. So I wasn't good at insulting people either. Connor was right; I really was a weenie. Well, Travis burst out laughing, then wiggled his hands, and shaped his mouth into a little 'o' as he rolled his eyes. Or, at least I thought he did, since his eyes were always completely concealed by his raggedy bangs.

"Ooo, scary!" He hooted. "You're _so _dark, Jakobin; you're _so, _deep. I think I'll call you… Swamp Thing."

"Damn you!" I cursed.

I turned my back on him grudgingly, doing the evil-villain cliché of hatefully drawing my blanky over me like a cape as I did so.

Travis snorted.

"Aww, come on Jakobin. Don't tell me you're still mad about getting beaned by a gummy bear, are you?" He leaned forward over his bunk bed, cocking his head, pretending that he didn't already know the answer.

"Ugh!" I scowled as I rolled back over to face him and sat up in my bed. I leaned on one arm. "_No, _Travis. You just did me a real _huge _favor making everyone laugh at me."

He snorted. "Tough luck, kid. It happens to everybody. Consider it… oh, I dunno… _initiation_ or something."

I didn't answer him.

A moment or two passed. I was still quiet, but Travis just wanted to keep poking.

"Jakobin."

"What?" My eyes darted over at him repositioning himself on his mattress. For a while, he didn't say anything else; he just let my name hang in the air. Travis was pondering. Hm. _That's_ monumental. Seems like he was in the process of extracting a puny thought from his impudent little potato brain.

"Mm," He began. "You know, if it makes you feel any better… because of you, I got in trouble with Chiron."

"Pssh. Yeah?"

"Yup. Me and Connor both. At the amphitheater, he punished us for not supervising you guys in the Art Room. He said if we had been around, we might have been able to prevent whatever happened."

I pursed my lips, averting my eyes from Travis.

"M' sorry."

His face dropped.

"Eh? For what?"

"For getting you in trouble. I shouldn't have talked to the kid."

"The imaginary one?"

I slammed my fist down in fury. "_Dammit!_ He _wasn't_ imaginary!"

Travis laughed. "Just kidding. I believe you."

"What?" I nearly recoiled. "You… believe me?"

"Hell yeah. My dad Hermes takes dead spirits over to Hades, remember? I believe those sort of things can happen."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "I never told you the kid I saw was dead."

"Well, that's what Chiron told us at the amphitheater. He thinks that the boy you saw must have been a dead spirit that escaped somehow from Hades. I think it's a little weird that only _you_ could see him, though. There's no Mist here in Camp Half-Blood, so I don't get…"

"Mist?"

Travis groaned. "In the human world, there's this thing called The Mist that contorts the magical from human eyes. The Mist makes it so that normal people can only see what their puny human minds can understand. Half-bloods are a little better, though, in that if we focus, we can see through The Mist. Then again, sometimes we can be as retarded as normal humans and not see much at all."

"Mist."

"Yeah, so in other words—in real life, you could be getting your ass kicked by some giant, three headed Cyclops while you defend yourself with a sword. But all the humans see is you getting your ass kicked by a big bad, smelly bully that maybe has glasses… and your defending yourself with a twig."

My left eye squinched up as I tried to wrap my mind around the concept of The Mist. I didn't know what to think. Maybe the bullies I knew in the 8th grade were all giant turd serpents. That would be pretty cool. All I'd have to do was throw toilet paper at them next time. Awesome. In other instances, however, I doubted The Mist existed.

"Anyway," Travis continued. "There's no Mist in Camp Half-Blood. So if he was a dead spirit, I would have thought everyone would be able to see him. But Logan told me that you were just being crazy. No one could see who you were talking to."

"Logan's an ass."

"Yeah, he kind of is. But he's a good guy, way deep down. Sort of like you."

I gave him the evil eye. Travis just shrugged.

"Well, you're sort of sour. But hey, it's you're first day. I'm sure you didn't wake up this morning knowing that everything you thought you knew about the world was going to be completely shattered when you came to camp."

I grumbled a little in reply. He was sort of right. Sort of.

Travis looked away from me, his eyes far off. "You thought you had a piece of solid ground. You probably... had friends, a nice school. Maybe a boyfriend. Then you get torn away from all of that and they tell you that you don't know shit. The truth is that one of your parents is a god, and guess what—? They don't really even know you _exist_," He whispered. He had been speaking so quietly, the way he said his last words seemed to stab me in my chest.

I rubbed the corner of my blanket in my fingers.

"Is… is that what happened to you?"

"No," He murmured. "It's what I _wish_ happened to me."

"So… you wish you had a boyfriend?"

His face exploded into mortification.

"What!" He exclaimed.

"_Ha _ha!" I did my best to imitate him, even pointed my finger, but I knew it wasn't half as gloriously obnoxious as his was. Then Travis's serious, distant expression broke into a laugh. He'd turned back into himself again.

"Oh yeah," he chuckled. "I definitely wanted a boyfriend, Jakobin."

I smiled.

"Hey, that's a great look for you," He suddenly said.

"What?"

"Nothing. You're smiling. First time I've seen ya do it all day. The rest of the time I saw you, you were always glaring or givin' me the stink eye."

I glared again.

"Oops. Never mind," He grinned.

"Whatever," I grumped. I rolled over and pulled my Bunnicula blanket over me for the last time.

"'Night, Wako Jako."

"'Night, Ass Milk."

Travis did a final snort, and the screeching of his mattress told me he had rolled over to go to sleep, too. Then everything was silent, and the hum of the fan and the crickets chirping returned to the room while the soft breathing of the campers below smoothed the whole scene over.

I wasn't going to lie. My first day at Camp Half-Blood had been complete hell. I had been told that one of my parents wasn't my parent; I had been beaned by a dodgeball, a gummy bear, and an actual bean; I had been called a hoodoo, a freak, a liar, and then shunned for it, I had even survived taking a shower in Butterfinger crumbs; and it didn't look like it was going to get any better.

But these thoughts soon fell away and faded into a serene blankness as my eye lids became heavier and heavier. These thoughts were soon forgotten. All the teasing, all the laughing, all the insults… they sifted away until they became a faint ribbon of nothing.

And somehow, I didn't give a second thought while I was lying there, that when my eyes had finally closed, as I drifted away into a soft, soft sleep…

That the flashlight had stayed on.


	7. Scatter Strings

Chapter Seven

"Come on, baby, get up," someone said.

I was too tired. I rolled over, but I felt the sheets get pulled off of me.

"Jay! Come on, baby. I'm leaving."

"What?" my body bulleted into the sitting position at the phrase. Purple walls surrounded me; the room I was in was my own. When I glanced down at my bed, the sheets were black and speckled with stars. Smooth, muffled sounds of New York City pattered against the window pane— I was back at my home, an apartment off of Fifth Avenue. Slowly looking down, my arms were at my sides—small and spindly. I was a child; sleeping in a hazy memory, caught in a dream.

The hand of the person who was speaking to me was pressing down on the bed beside my thigh.

"You awake now?"

"Wait, where are you going?" My tone was frantic. They couldn't leave me like this. They had been with me all my life; They were my only friend. How was I supposed to get along without Them?

They sighed and reached over me to stroke my hair. It was longer then, and Their fingers sifted through the black strands. I knew that They didn't want to do it, but something inside me made me feel sick. They didn't want to leave me, but They also had heartache—They wanted to leave this place. What the reason was, what the heartache was over, I had no clue. In the meanwhile, I was waiting for Their answer. There was yet anything but empty silence between us.

"I'm going away for studying, love," They said. "But I'll be back in November. If not, you know that I'm always back in time for your birthday…"

Their voice trailed off into the soft light that filtered through the blinds on the windows. Everything went hazy, all in a glow of lilac. They leaned forward and kissed my forehead—so delicately, I wondered if They saw me as glass— They thought if They weren't careful, I would break.

Hot tears speckled my face. Loneliness came crashing on me like a tidal wave; I felt that I couldn't catch my breath.

"But… why?"

"Baby, I just told you why." They gave me a painful smile, half laughing.

"But… but I…" I couldn't control all the tears that came pouring out of me. My crying distorted my words until even _I_ couldn't understand myself. I slipped my legs out of the covers and fell into Them. My hands clasped the folds in Their black turtleneck, Their scent of lilac and ashes enveloping me. I thought that if I could keep Them here, They would miss Their plane and not be able to go. I cried there for only a few moments, with Their arms wrapped tightly around me.

I remember it clearly as the first time I had ever truly felt protected—

and the first time I'd ever felt so utterly, so hoplessly alone.

Their head was hung over my small shoulders, but at last They lifted away from me. I could've sworn that I saw the glimmer of a tear on Their cheek when I finally saw Them—

my father, Drake. His pale face was smiling at me. Gentle eyes watched my blotchy, crying visage as he got off the bed and onto the floor. Turning me around, he slid me to the edge of the bed while he held my shoulders and stood up on his knees in front of me.

He had always looked so proper to me, despite his unearthly quirks and interests. His dark hair was pulled back into a loose pony tail and dark rimmed glasses rested on his straight nose. He took my hands and laced his long, tapering fingers through them. Leaning my head back, I could see his soft image through kaleidoscope tears that got tangled in my eyelashes like dew drops; intercepting colors and scattering light all over the room.

"I'm sorry that I have to leave, Jay. But these sorts of things are… necessary," he whispered, his voice stirring the wispy strands of my hair. My head was against his chest, while I had my eyes closed, feeling the soft fabric of his sweater press against my cheeks and forehead. "This is just the first time you've been old enough to see me off," he explained further. "But don't worry. Eventually you… you'll get used to it."

"Okay," was all I could muster, although it was the weakest reply I had in me. He slipped himself out of my small embrace, and, to my dismay, stood up to leave. In his hands were no luggage, no pack, not a suitcase, or messenger bag. They were already in a hailed taxi, ready for him to leave. He had taken special time just to come and tell me goodbye…

"Mrs. Gale is downstairs waiting for you with breakfast. She'll be the one looking after you while I'm gone. But please, Jay, call me if you need me."

I had wanted to tell him that I needed him right now; that I always needed him—but I had already troubled him enough. Already, he'd delayed himself coming to talk to me, and he was even having his assistant from the library, Mrs. Gale, be the one to take care of me. Even then, it was as if my selfish, childish heart wanted to keep him there, despite all his kindness and efforts to appease me.

"I'll miss you…!" I garbled through a fading fit of tears. He turned in the doorway, reassuring me with that serene smile that was as much apart of me as it was him, that everything would be alright. I hated to think that for weeks I wouldn't see that smile; I would be missing that part of me; but the silent confidence that he had in his return made me think his leave wouldn't be long at all, and, before I knew it, we would be on the living room floor together again, reading fairy tales and Grimm fables.

He tossed his head slightly and chuckled. "I'm always missing you, love," was the last thing he said before he vanished from my room and left to his taxicab.

My tiny feet rushed me to the window, looking out into the apartment parking lot where he appeared and entered the yellow ship that soon sailed off into the sea of highway. Soon I could no longer tell his cab from another; it was lost in the waves of vehicles that waded in the streets and intersections, the paint jobs shining like water in the hazy September sun.

I had been only five or six, and it had been my first time experiencing Daddy leaving me. In time, I learned that he'd been right—his leaving was much necessary; when he returned he always seemed more refreshed and relaxed.

That didn't mean to say that I had been content while I watched that particular taxicab evaporate into the forever rivers of road. Up until then, Daddy had been somewhat of a friend, a teacher, a prince, and a father all at the same time—and I admit that my childish heart had mistaken him as somewhat of a toy. He was always around when I needed him, and he remained even when I didn't. Now he had left me, and cut the strings that I thought I had on him. My fingers no longer held him.

He wasn't a toy. He was just… gone.

* * *

A bright orange fog clouded my head. I heard myself yawn as my eyes fluttered open. Piercing rays of sunlight were on my face when I rubbed my forehead with one hand. Peering down below, where a jumble of kids, sleeping bags, and junk littered the floor, Reality pimp slapped me across the face. It reminded me that I was still in Camp Half-Blood. Ugh. Right. _And_ I was still stuck in the Biscuit Tube.

"Hermeees Cabiiinnn," I groaned in horrified acknowledgement when I snuggled back into the mattress. Sleep was good. It would distract me from another day chock full of "Wako Jako" and possible gummy bear attacks.

Unfortunately, this crucial act of snuggle-ment was ruined when someone started shaking me, my eyes joggling in their sockets.

"Jeremy, Jeremy! Wake up, man, you're gonna miss it!"

I didn't bother arguing with them; no energy was yet in me this early in the morning to come up when any good insults… except for maybe 'ass milk.' So instead of yelling at whoever-it-was not to call me Jeremy, I rolled over and faced the person trying to jiggle me senseless.

"Dude. What happened to your hair?" Connor gasped, jumping away from me.

"Allergic to darkness. This is what happens when you turn the lights off on me. Can't say I didn't warn you," I explained. Smirking, he pushed away from the rails of my bunk, but I continued. "Sometimes it gets so wild it just reaches out and snags off peoples' toes at night. Ya never know, Connor. Someday you might just wake up toeless and kids'll just call you nubby for the rest of your life. "

Connor smirked, although his eyes were narrowed. "And you'll have my cranky toes as hair barrettes. Nice, Jakobin. Nice," he scoffed. "But—before any of that happens— help me wake up the other campers, would ya?"

"What!" I snapped. "No!"

Straightening up, Connor squared back his shoulders to assume some sort of air of superiority.

"Yield, grasshoppa, and do as I say, lest you suffer the wrath that will consist of two months expired flea juice," He threatened. I raised an eyebrow.

Weirdo.

Sighing, I flopped out of bed to help him wake everybody. However, I found that when I did so, everyone immediately split from their sleeping bags like runaway bananas and shot to the other side of the room. Once against the opposite wall, they shivered, clinging to their blankies and stuffed… acorns? The black haired boy, whom I so recently learned was called Logan, glared at me. It seemed he was still firm in his opinion of my being a liar and an attention hog, but oh well.

Connor stood with a wrinkled chin and pursed lips whilst he scratched his head. It seemed that this was the first time he'd witnessed such ritualistic shunning, if he wasn't already masticating the 'sheezah-witch! sheezah-witch!" theory in his pea-brain mind. Meanwhile, I, on the other hand, stood slumped and squinted, remembering that everyone was still yet under the impression that I was a hoodoo.

"Well," Connor breathed, turning to me with his eyes still pulled into little slits. "Eh… thanks, Jeremy. Cabin record wakin' everyone up."

"Mm. Yeah. Don't mention it," I muttered, snatching my messenger bag from the top bunk. Huffily, I thrust it over my shoulder as I meandered through stockpiles of junk and neglected laundry toward the door. Kids parted like the Red Sea away from that damn door as soon as they saw me nearing it. They would probably sing "ding dong the witch is dead" after I left—which I did.

For the most part, that is.

Once the door had slammed shut behind me, I swung my body to the side of the door and listened in. I swear I heard them talking and giving way to sighs of relief.

"Holy crap, holy crap, holy CRAP, man! I think she friggin' brushed against me!"

"Dude, you better take a four hour shower and get that creepy jinx magic off of ya. Or else you might start seeing that creep-o imaginary friend that Wako Jako sees all the time. You know what happens when you get imaginary friends, don't you?"

"Mr. D makes you shave his back?"

"Ew. Aw, _Hell naw!_ You have to sit on Wako Jako's side of the table."

"Dude. I don't wanna do that."

"Then go take a shower."

Crud.

A start arose from me as I darted off the porch of the cabin and hid on its side when the door flicked open and one of my cabin mates dashed out, already wearing a rubber ducky shower cap with a towel slung around his neck. Silently, I watched after him. He faded off into the distance, toward the bathrooms way out past the Cabin Commons, into the faint fog that hazed over the camp.

Whoever he was, he was going to wash me off as soon as he got there.

Like the plague.

A disease.

Somewhere in my throat, a dry lump lodged itself as my face contorted into an expression of anger and frustration. My back against the cabin wall, I slid down to the ground, defeated. Why didn't they like me? Why didn't…

Get a _hold_ of yourself, Jakobin, I told myself. No one gets to you this easily. Didn't you promise yourself you would never let things like this get you down again?

I attempted to argue with myself that I wasn't used to conditions where I was surrounded by other people—that I was homeschooled by Daddy my whole life, with the exception of Kindergarten and the goddam horrid Eighth Grade— I was never in an environment where I had to strive to be accepted or make friends. As for summer camps, I never tried, period. I couldn't handle this. I just couldn't.

But that part of me that was stronger than dumb kids picking their nose and mandatory calls to Toilet Duty told me that I could. I might be a weenie, but I wasn't a loser; not on Mr. D's immortal life. Or at least not yet, anyway.

With a huge breath, I regained composure and pushed away from the cabin. The strap of my bag returned snugly to my shoulder; I'd come back to myself. What made me walk away from the Hermes Cabin to face another day was simple:

Yesterday was Day One.

Today was bright and the strawberry fields smelled like invisible awesome. I was fully armed with five balls of rainbow socks and only one other pair of jeans; and evidentally something amazing was going to happen today, according to Connor.

So, in the words of the dinky Travis Stoll; '_Bring it_, Camp Half-Blood. Bring it.'


	8. My Aim Is True! Or Is It?

Chapter Eight

All I can say is this: Camp Half-Blood frickin' brought it—with jarring, fiendish, valley-girl screams. Because the next thing I heard were the ear-searing shrieks that ripped out from one of the cabins like steel shiers cutting clear across the Cabin Commons. Two piercing "BANG"s from a pink cabin split the air, thundering through the surrounding forest. I nearly screamed myself and hid behind a naked Greek statue, as if I was expecting the camp to get nuked, and the bare ass of the statue I was hiding behind was _totally _going to help me. Some curiosity as to what the two shots had been made me peek around Mr. Statue's ass, however. That would be when I saw someone torpedoing away from the wailing, screeching pink cabin— tearing across the Cabin Commons like their ass was on fire—

Travis.

His partners in crime, Cookie and Cow, were clinging for dear life to the roots of his hair with their front paws. Their tiny feet flailed wildly in the wind with their toes all spread out as Travis barreled through the grass with the goofiest look of terror I'd ever seen. He was an orange and brown whir of frantic speed, looking more like a crazed, runaway hot dog than a sprinter, when he finally stumbled on the porch of the Hermes Cabin. Travis rushed inside.

As soon as he'd done this, laughter and screaming cheers escaped my cabin. I could see through some windows that Travis was standing by the door with his arms up in the air in triumph. Everyone was laughing and snorting, patting Travis on the back and playfully punching his arm while they reveled in their "_amazingly awesome_" prank. Ugh. Hermes Kids...

It seemed like Pale Guy's points were multiplying like bunnies.

Pale guy: 2, Hermes Kids: 0.

Scornfully, I removed my focus from the gloating Hermes cabin and looked at the place that Travis had just put into an uproar. This pink cabin's swan-guarded doors swung open, releasing a splurge of screaming primadonnas.

They thrashed into the Commons half-dressed, stuck in only their boxers or frilly night gowns. The chicks' hands flailed wildly over their heads (which were still tangled in rollers) while the pretty-dudes' hands were too occupied with holding their crucial straightening irons and gel bottles. Cucumbers still clung to their eyelids; globby green facial cream hid their freaked-out faces.

Some of the kids even shrieked mindlessly as their sleeping masks (which they hadn't bothered to take off) blinded them. They tripped over their slippers and plopped into the Commons' fountain. The poor kids were drenched and spitting water out of their mouths, mascara streaking down their faces as they lamented over their ruined hair do's. The Other boys and girls stood outside their pink cabin either yelling or bawling in fury. All of them began to shout Greek curses as grey smoke sifted out their cabin door.

Well, needless to say, all their hissy-fitting and "oh-_gods_-I-can't-_live_-with-my-ruined-_hair!_" bawling woke up _everybody_ in the Cabin area. This only made them cry harder, now that they believed _everybody _was looking at them.

"Oh-em-_gee_, don't lookit me! I, like, haven't even put on my _face_!" wailed one of the girls, plucking a cucumber off her eyelid.

… Ok. So _maybe _I pitied them a _little _less after that totally 'un-conceited' remark.

But it's not like what the chick said did her any good; kids just looked at her now more than ever. Meanwhile, campers crowded outside of their cabins to see what'd caused all the ruckus. They were kept in check only by their Cabin Counselors. Otherwise, they'd scatter and run around mindlessly in the Commons like baby cockroaches on acid.

I finally plucked myself off Mr. Statue's ass to rejoin my cabin. However, I found that my cabin was standing directly behind me, already outside with Connor and Travis at the front of the group. Walking toward them, Connor pulled me aside, grinning widely—

"Told ya you were gonna miss it."

"Oh, _trust me," _I smirked, "I didn't."

Connor and Travis began snorting with laughter and pushed me behind them, lumping me back into the Biscuit Tube.

Then I officially hated Travis and Connor.

Well, their tallness at least.

I completely failed to see what was going on over Travis and Connor's raggedy heads. Under my breath, I damned my stubbiness. This didn't mean to say that I couldn't hear a bunch of voices from the pink cabin (which I could recognize with the plethora of "likes" and "Oh-em-gees" in their sentences) running together at once. They all explained to Chiron that this morning two firecrackers just blew up in their room—

"And like, we didn't know why! It just, like, happened!" one of the girls added.

"Firecrackers are just uncool, dude, uncool," chimed in a primadonna boy, after he mentioned that the firecrackers had totally ruined his beauty sleep.

Travis and Connor snickered amongst each other, although every time Chiron shot a look at them, they acted utterly solemn and serious. They were always going back to chuckling, though; talking about how this was the best prank yet and how proud Hermes would be if they got away with it—but they were suddenly struck speechless.

"Shiiiit," Travis murmured as I somehow managed to peek through a crevice between his armpit and his back. I immediately withdrew though—for the tiny space that I had been able to see through not only reeked of five million years worth of Axe, but also because it revealed Chiron clopping towards all of us at the Hermes cabin.

He remarkably turned, however, to a group of satyrs, nymphs, and dryads to ask if they had any idea if the firecrackers were more or less an accident of woodland magic? They shook their heads no, looking grave. Chiron's expression was grim as he grinned wryly at Travis and Connor. He also took a special notice of the Barbarian Kids, whose cabin was plopped directly next to the Primadonna cabin.

Inching my eyes to the side of Connor, I could see more of Chiron. He scratched his scruffy beard in a bemused manner, habitually furrowing his eyebrows.

"Well, children," he said at last. "It seems we have a rather sneaky—," he pointedly glanced at Travis and Connor, "and rash—," he targeted the Barbarian Kids, "—situation on our hands. While we don't have many clues as to who's done it at the moment, do _not _doubt that this will be handled."

"But, but— Chiron! Come _on_! We all _know _who did it," objected a primadonna.

Chiron steadily shook his head, his amiable smile returning to his face.

"Innocent until proven guilty, child," He countered nonchalantly. "Since you didn't see where the firecrackers came from, or who might have put them there, we've no reason to suspect anyone yet."

The primadonnas bickered with him seemingly forever that the Ares Kids (who I guessed were the Barbarian Kids) were "the only blockheads dumb enough to pull a lame-o prank on the Aphrodite Cabin."

Hmm.

**Barbie and Ken campers** plus **pink cabin** times **Oh-Em-Gee** equals **Aphrodite**.

Sounds reasonable.

While the Aphrodite kids had their match (although it wasn't much of one) with Chiron, the other cabins lost interest. Even the Hermes Cabin went inside, bored with the one-sided battle between Chiron and the… uh… _lip gloss-sized_ brains of the primadonnas. Eventually no one was left in the Cabin Commons except me, Travis, Connor, and the 'It's-all-the-Ares-kids'-fault' debate party.

Travis and Connor finally turned around, facing me. A wry smile crossed both of their faces.

"C'mon, Jeremy," Connor smirked triumphantly. "Let's go inside."

I sighed. Travis and Connor had gotten away with it all right—

—For now.

I knew Chiron wasn't stupid. He'd already determined the prank was either the Ares or Hermes cabin. And this was only if he hadn't already decided completely on it being Travis's and Connor's fault. If it was the latter decision, Travis and Connor were going to be scrubbing shit bowls riiiiiight along with me.

… and probably longer.

--

Wrestling and archery class had been absolute hell to me— perhaps comparable to being locked in an empty room with a retarded moose and being forced to listen to it smacking on a wad of walnuts.

But never mind the moose.

The archery range was set up at the edge of camp, so if you missed a target, your arrows went straight into the woods and stabbed a rabbit in its liver instead of it going through the camp and stabbing a camper in their spleen. Pretty smart plan.

… For the _most_ part.

When you have the Hermes kids and the Apollo kids squished into the same class, it wasn't exactly full proof—by the end of the day, _someone's _spleen was gonna be punctured, period.

There were 8 targets and about 40 total campers, which, if you were smart enough to do the math (which most of the Hermes kids weren't), meant that 5 kids should line up at each target. Like I said, they just couldn't do the math. Or _wouldn't. _

The first target had a crap load of Hermes kids crowding into one line as best they could. All the kids were pushing and shoving each other to get a better spot, cutting and pleading: "Nah uh, no cutting." A few fell to bribing each other with chore trading or "you can have my bunk for fifteen minutes— for reals."

Mm Hmm.

I sniffed, wondering how these kids could possibly be well into pre-adolescence and still talk like a kindergarteners. Then, I supposed, that it had much to do with the Counselors of our cabin, who seemed to have potatoes sitting in their skulls. They were just spreading the potato-brain-itis to the rest of the cabin. I just had to make sure that I didn't drink after them or bite off their food to stay clear of the Potato-brain-itis epidemic.

So all those kids were lined up in front of Target One. Target Two wasn't much better off— that one just harbored the remainder of the Biscuit Tube. However, it became exceedingly clear why they did this after I saw that the Apollo Kids who'd joined us had done the same thing—only they were at the opposite end of the Archery Range; they filled up Targets Seven and Eight. All the little targets in the middle were like a big buffer zone so that our cabins wouldn't have to talk to each other. But I thought it was more likely that they left such a huge gap so they wouldn't be tempted to stab each others' eyes out with their arrowheads or shoot each other in the pancreas. And sheez, arrow to the pancreas isn't exactly a piece of cake. Unless you're a vampire, of course, like Bunnicula.

I stood in the back of the Archery Range underneath a tree, surveying everyone from a safe distance while simultaneously protecting my much needed spleen (and pancreas) from any possible badly-aimed arrows. Not to mention that I wasn't too eager to get involved in another activity after being brutally body slammed by some chick in the Apollo Cabin in my first and hopefully last wrestling class. She apologized again and again after it, though; she almost cried. I didn't have any bad feelings for her at all—except for maybe the entire left side of my body that was purpling like a friggin' beet root. But oh well. It's not like it was her fault that I smelled at fighting.

Smelled bad, that is.

I sighed, watching everyone gather their bows and arrows that were being distributed by their Cabin Counselors. To entertain myself, I shredded random pieces of foliage. They shot arrows—and I led the massacre of hundreds of little dead blades of grass. The wimpy green casualties piled up in a neat little mountain next to my foot when my stomach interrupted me.

Looking up, the sun light fell directly down through the little breaks in tree leaves—it was high noon, and I was hungry "like the dickens" if I wanted to put it in Daddy's terms. Beside me was my trusty messenger bag that I'd brought along. Inside I'd packed a notepad and pen, the current Bunnicula volume I was reading, and a pair of rainbow socks brought out of paranoia.

No snack.

Just like me to pack everything but the essentials.

Summer breeze stirred the landscape and blew away some of my spindly grass victims when I finally sat back on my palms to observe everyone. My eyes drew to the Archery Range to examine the dozens of kids aiming their arrows or refilling their quivers.

Of course, since this was only my second day, everyone except Connor, Travis, and that ass Logan, might as well have been tree stumps. I still didn't know anyone, and like hell I was going to run up and say:

"Hey guys; you know me—the crazy ass chick who has an evil imaginary friend? I know you all hate me for destroying your Art Room and all, but I thought we could still be friends! Nice weather, isn't it?"

Yeah, they'd gut me. I'd have more luck trying to invite Curt Cobain to a Sunday tea party with sprinkle cakes and little coffee crumpets. I shuddered at the thought. Gods forbid if he was looking down at me, actually considering the idea.

"I like your shirt," someone chimed.

I screamed.

Damn whoever it was behind me!

Of course, the person laughed as I discovered that they had someone else was with them. Turning, I found that the laughing kids were my Potato-Brain-Itis-infested Counselors. They were standing amusedly behind the tree.

"Sheez, you jerks! You could've at least given me a warning," I complained as they settled down. Travis plopped down on the grass as Connor remained standing. He leaned on his long bow as his quiver slung low on his left shoulder. Travis had thoughtlessly (assuming that he'd experienced thought before) thrown his bow and quiver to the side in a heap. Unfortunately, I was slighted with embarrassment, so I fell to tearing up the grass with a little more vigor than what was probably necessary.

"We came over here to tell you that you gotta participate, Jakobin," informed Connor, looking matter-of-factly at me. I grunted in dread.

"We went easy on you in wrestling class, since we only made you participate one round. Kinda got the idea that it wasn't your forte and all, so…"

"You're shittin' me. I almost got _killed_ in there! That chick friggin' tried to pancake me, and now my innards are all in the process of caving in!"

"I shit you _not…_" Connor countered with a valiant, Camelot voice, "for thou shoudst likeths to know that thy opponent apologized-eth incessantly after thy gnarly defeat."

"Mm. Gnarly. Nice word choice there, Arthur, king of the Britons."

"What?" said Connor again in a terribly British accent so it sounded more like "wot" than "what." Heh. Only a son of Hermes, I suppose.

Travis rolled over on his side.

"Still, though. You gotta participate just a _little, _Jakobin. You can't just come here and waste away under a big dumb tree, ya know," he remarked.

"It's not a big dumb tree. How'd you like it if I said you were a big dumb boy?"

Connor snorted, smacking his arm. "Wouldn't be too far from the truth!"

Travis ignored Connor and just kept on smiling, refocusing on me. "Well. Can't say I'd like it, but I'd make sure to fill your toothpaste tube with Pegasi poop the next day."

"Okay, okay— enough about the _trees, _for the gods' sakes," interrupted Connor in a hasty tone. He shook his head and snatched his longbow, then jabbed Travis with the end of it. "The point that Travis very easily lost sight of was that we're forcing you to get out there, and shoot some arrows. It's not that hard."

"Yeah, what he said," Travis nodded.

I'm not going to lie. Not only did I not want to do it, but I was scared that today would be similar to yesterday—that Pale Guy was going to materialize out of no where and make me shoot some kid in the face. And then what? How was I going to redeem myself for killing somebody?

Shrugging off the idea, I managed a meager glance up at Connor, who was waiting for my answer, as if I had a choice.

"Fine."

Connor's face broke into a wide grin when he jabbed Travis again. "Great, Jeremy. Travis here'll help you out— won't ya, Trav?"

Travis smacked the end of Connor's longbow out of pancreas-stabbing range and began protesting. "Why do _I _have to do it? _You_ were the one who was so damn adamant about making her join us! She'd probably just kill one of the campers anyway!"

Yes, Travis. For once, you have a point.

Connor didn't listen, though. He argued that we wouldn't have to do it for long anyway, since it was about time for lunch. With that, he shoved Travis his bow and quiver and threw us out into the buffer zone between the Hermes and Apollo cabins.

Travis looked like he'd rather teach a class on The Mating Calls of Sasquatch than give me a lesson on archery, but I wasn't exactly thrilled about it either. Somehow he slapped a cheery smile on his face anyway, and turned to me all 'Howdy-doo.'

"Alright, Wako Jako. Looks like I'm gonna teach ya how to draw a bow and arrow today," he chimed. His tone was menacing as he walked me over to the target where he and Connor had been shooting. There were a bunch of red arrows on the Target before us, and a bunch of blue ones that protruded from everywhere _but _the target.

Yeah, guess whose the blue arrows were.

Just one glance at Travis's 'talent' threw me into another pool of disinclination. "I'd… I'd rather not," I objected, beginning to slowly slink away from the Archery Range. Travis dogged me though, laughing the whole way.

"Hey, hey, hey— why not? You'd only be learning from the best!" He argued. I stopped walking and just squinted, still facing away from him; I looked headlong toward the shady tree that I wanted so much to hide behind.

I grumbled a reply. "Oh, I concur with you completely, Travis. You're definitely "The Best" with an amazing bull's-eye average of…" I glanced over at his entire target range, whose grass was full of little blue arrows. "…ZERO."

"My aim was a little off."

"Where the hell were you aiming? The friggin' Sputnik Satellite?"

"Oh yeah. Almost hit it a few times. Those Russians'll never know what hit 'em," he chirped, lifting his mop head up to the sky as if Sputnik would come crashing down any second.

Maybe I would've smiled, but I was too busy realizing that if Travis taught me how to draw a bow, I was going to end up killing someone, with or without the help of Pale Guy. But it was no use—Travis tossed me a bow and quiver, and soon I was imitating him in how to set the arrow in the bow string.

I pulled back, and back, and back; feeling the tautness of the string grow against my fingertips when at last I released. The arrow went searing through the air—straight toward to target. My heart lifted—as it got closer, I could see it was heading dead-on into the Bull's-eye. Travis even remarked on its accuracy, putting his hand above his eyes so he could witness it stab into the center of the target.

Flying, flying, flying—

then the damn arrow decided that it was too lazy to hit the target, and just stabbed itself into the patch of grass just two inches away from the target.

Figures.

Sighing, I threw my eyes at Travis; tacitly telling him "told you so." He just shrugged and wiped the sweat off the side of his face with the back of his hand.

"First time, Jakobin. And the first time's never perfect, you know. Takes practice and all that jazz."

I murmured an "Mm Hmm" when Travis decided that he was going to show me "how the big boys do it". I sat down so as to escape the range of certain death. Travis's gangly arm then whipped out an arrow from his quiver, the blue arrow head glimmering in the sunlight. He set it up against his bow and drew the arrow far back in one sweep, keeping what I assumed was a steady eye on the target from behind his shaggy bangs.

"My aim is true!" Travis proclaimed stupidly, letting his arrow fly. We both waited to see which patch of grass he would soon impale, but the sun was far too bright. Blinded, we waited for a few seconds until the clouds passed so we could see his imminent failure.

"AGH! MY EYE!" someone screamed from down the target range.

We exchanged glances.

That's when we heard Connor run out from the other archery lines, yelling "D'ah, _Shit!_" and a swarm of campers rush to the right side of the range, surrounding a fallen camper.


	9. An Unexpected Saviour

**Chapter Nine**

Immediately, all the blood drained out of my face. Limp and blank-minded, I felt like I'd collapse as I watched a few more campers rush over to Target Seven. The overwhelming fear of mine had come true— another camper had gotten hurt while I was around. All the taunts and jeering that would soon sprout from _this_ little incident already scared me shitless. Without thinking, I began yelling at Travis.

"DAMMIT!" I snapped, "look what you _did_, Ass Milk!" My hands were over my head, wrenching at my hair as I struggled to find words. "You—you—YOU KILLED A CAMPER!"

"I-I-I… I didn't mean to!" Travis stammered. He morphed into a wreck of silence and barely-there fidgeting; unmoving like he was watching the entire scene around us in slow motion. Only a tiny garble came from his mouth; a small "oh gods… oh shit" was about the last thread I could decipher.

Moving to the side, I could see Connor had finally made it to Target Seven (along with the majority of the Hermes Cabin) to take control of the panicking Apollo Cabin. He was having a hard time though, working through the wall of Apollo kids. He needed to see what the damage was on the fallen camper—and fast.

From here, the shouting from the crowd that encircled Travis's unknowing victim could still reach us. I listened intently. Travis's brother was yelling at the Apollo Kids (who all seemed without any sense at the moment) to move out of the way—but they wouldn't listen.

"Gods, what the hell happened?!" Connor yelled, looking around at the crowd of Hermes and Apollo kids; searching for the face of an Apollo Counselor, I suppose, but found none. "Where the hell is your cabin counselor?" He barked.

Silence.

"I said 'where the _hell_ is your cabin counselor'?!"

All at once, a bunch of mouths started to explain what had happened, but nothing about where their counselor was at. Connor then began just shoving kids out of the way when he finally made it through to whoever was hurt.

Travis and I could hear some faint whining while the crowd murmured over whatever Connor was saying now. It didn't help my nerves whatsoever. My hands were still tangled up in my hair and my bottom lip was serving as a stress reliever between my two chattering teeth. Nothing helped. Over and over again, the image played of some kid lying on the ground with an arrow sticking out of his head, blood all around and goo from his punctured eyeball. It would only be when Connor pronounced the kid dead that I would stop fidgeting, and even then, I would freak.

At last, a voice broke the silence. _Here it comes_, I thought—the kid was dead; Travis was a murderer; and I—

"_POTATO CHIPS_?!" We heard Connor roar. A quick whapping sound ensued, like he'd slapped someone upside the head. A pansy cry pain followed.

My eye squinched up; I tried to fathom why Connor would scream about greasy potato flakes while some kid was lying on the ground, bleeding and oozing to death from the eye socket. I supposed maybe the potato chips were the last wish of the camper. Maybe this kid, with their… uh… last dying breath, had asked for a tube of Pringles?

"WHAT THE—I thought you were _hurt_!" he screamed.

A frightened voice answered him.

"N-no, sir! I was just… I brought out this bag of chips, right, and my friend thought it would be funny if he p-popped the bag in m-m-my face and it just…"

"And you_ thought _it would be _funny_ to start screaming and howling and throw yourself on the ground like someone friggin' _stabbed_ you?!" Connor furiously snarled.

"But they were salt and vinegar!" the kid peeped.

Connor scowled angrily. With another whap to the head, he told the kid to never do something like that again or he would purposely salt the kid's eye like a defenseless slug. The kid managed to squeak a "Yessir" out of their mouth and scuttled back to their friends. But still the crowd remained as if they were waiting to see a fireworks finale or for Connor to do the moonwalk. They all looked at him stupidly with big fish eyes, waiting for the act.

"Don't look at _me_, dorkalopes! Get back to practicing!"

The cabins shot apart and scurried back to their lines like little cockroaches in fear of the almighty wrath of Connor's pimp slap. Connor, though, stood with his arms crossed by the Apollo kids— probably waiting for their counselor to show up so he could chew them out for leaving their cabin unsupervised.

The relief hadn't set in yet, though. Travis was still acting like he'd gotten his voice slapped out of him, while I stood dumbfounded, marveling at the reality of it all being one hell of a misunderstanding. After some long minutes of standing there in vegetable zombie mode, Travis blinked.

"Whoa," was all he could get out. His eyes were still caught in a 2000 meter stare. "He called you a dorkalope."

I blew a relieved stream of air up into my bangs, ignoring the fact that Connor had collectively called us all dorkalopes and not just me. "I'll gladly take the insult," I breathed. "I seriously thought you'd killed somebody."

Travis smacked my back, knocking the wind out of me. "But I didn't!" He grinned, as if it were some amazing accomplishment. "Looks like an apology's in order."

Narrowing my eyes at him, I croaked out an apology, only to be laughed at by his notorious "_HA_HA." Whatever. I secretly wished that one of his boobs would grow bigger than the other as I stumbled away after lobbing my quiver at him. It hit him hard in the chest and he made a girly whimper about it. A mock evil laugh escaped me while I sat back under my tree, putting my fingertips together like Mr. Burnes.

Yes… yes. That's it, Travis. Soreness is the first symptom—

First.

Symptom.

--

Lunch wasn't so bad. Connor and Travis actually made it a point to sit next to me this time. Consequently, the rest of the Biscuit Tube was completely discombobulated. Their faces all said "What? Why are our ultra awesome counselors sitting next to our bean and gummy bear target?" but I just sat and concentrated on the purple of a whimsical eggplant sitting on my plate. Connor asked if I was waiting for it to talk to me; I turned to him with a very serious face.

There was no use in waiting for the eggplant to speak, I told him— the eggplant was telepathic, and we were having a very deep conversation about how mainstream music was totally bunk and how Hungarian hip hop was _way _to the radness.

Connor made a weird face.

"Yeeeah," he said as he took in a deep breath. "So, Travis how's that weather?"

Before he could successfully change the subject, I continued— "Yes. Laugh at poor Jakobin for talking to her telepathic eggplant while the rest of you whisper to your goblets about diet-vanilla-cherry-and-gods-know-what-else Coke."

Travis and Connor where silent, then laughed at me. Once they had gotten a hold of them selves, they wheezed out a giggling answer to my little outburst.

"Hoo," breathed Travis after smacking himself in the chest. "You got it all wrong, Wako Jako. We're telling the goblets what we want to drink, not whispering to them."

Yeah, like that made any sense. The Stoll Brothers continued chuckling at me under their breath until finally Connor decided to demonstrate. Pushing his goblet between us, he _Ahem_-ed idiotically and fell back into his Camelot voice.

"Now keepeths a keen eye, my dear Halfling," he began.

"I'm not a Halfling," I grunted.

"Very well. Thou art a hobbit, then," shrugged Connor carelessly.

"Hey! I am not a—!"

"SHUT UPPETH!"

What can I say? I shut up. Connor then proceeded with the stupid demonstration.

He wiggled his fingers over the empty goblet and mumbled something about Earl Grey tea, though I hadn't a clue as to why. Maybe it was just the Potato-Brain-Itis progressing into its last stages. Alas, my talent in being wrong raised its ugly head once more. Because when Connor lifted the goblet to my face, there it was—searing hot Earl Grey tea sitting in his cup. The heat of it fogged up my glasses as its steam wafted into my face.

"Ooo. Ahhh. It's pretty cool, 'idn't it?" marveled the Stoll Brothers sarcastically as they put up their hands and wiggled them, as if goblets that filled up with absolutely anything you wanted was just a part of the norm.

Nothing came out of my mouth; I was too busy gawking at the tea that had just materialized in Connor's goblet. At best, my staggered lips might have formed an intelligent "Eh-agh-huhhh"; but unless the Stoll Brothers could speak Mentally Retarded Elephant Seal, they wouldn't understand what I was saying. The two of them chuckled about my current state of speechlessness when the other cabins started to arrive.

The Apollo cabin entered the Pavilion last this time and not without good reason. Their two cabin counselors were getting a major talking to from Chiron—not to mention the jeers and the smart side comments from Mr. D.

Once they'd sat down, Connor made it a point to turn around and give a death glare to the "I'm-going-to-act-like-I'm-dying-because-some-potato-crumbs-got-in-my-eye" Kid. The kid ducked under Connor's glare and hid behind one of their siblings for protection.

"That little turd," Connor muttered before turning around. His grumblings got lost in the rumble of the lunch crowd as Chiron and Mr. D again appeared in the Pavilion after their spat with the Apollo counselors. Soon all the cabins situated themselves at their tables. Chiron blessed the food, and everyone started the chow-a-thon.

Lunch was awesomely pleasing. We had diced lamb and pita bread with some pretty wicked sauce that tasted something like chipotle, which would make our lunch the discombobulated spawn of Greek and Mexican food. Grexican, if you will. Strangely enough, it was delicious, but _this _time I made sure that I saved that big whimsical eggplant on my plate for the offering. A tiny idea in my mind said that whoever my (nonexistent) Olympian parent was— they were going to get a serious kick out of the weirdo purple vegetable that I would be sacrificing in their name.

"Um, Jakobin? It's like, time to go to the fire, man," said some dumb-sounding kid, just like last time we were at the fire. His Um's were becoming really recognizable, and I noticed him for the first time. Raggedy, disheveled blonde hair hung at a comfortable hippie-length from under his green beanie. With half-closed eyes and a mellow mouth that sometimes formed a sleepy smile, he managed to look like…

A weed-o.

My eye squinched up as he got up from the table with a few other kids. As he walked past, I was very aware of his strange smell: butter. Just. Straight. Butter.

"That's Ellfo," Connor informed me through a mouth full of pita crumbs, noticing my puzzled stare.

Slowly pulling my eyes off of the Butter-Smelling-Weed-o-Dude, I raised an eyebrow and asked Connor how the kid came to be called Ellfo.

"Well, his real name is Bobicus, but it just doesn't fit 'im."

"So we just started calling him by 'is last name," Travis cut in, "Ellfo."

"Weird name," I nodded slowly, squinting my eyes in approval, "but pretty rad."

Travis sighed, rolling his eyes, "You're not one to talk, Miss I'm-Named-After-French-Weirdos-Who-Wanted To-Kill-Everybody."

"I _said_ it was _rad_!" But Travis and Connor just laughed me off and got up to go to give their offerings. It seemed I hadn't a choice but to follow suit.

We walked down the Pavilion to the huge burning brazier. Everyone was waiting in line to throw their food into the great fire, and, by the time it got around to me, I had been standing in line for ten minutes (and there were still a few people behind me. Poor them…)

With a deep breath, I titled my plate, hoping that I wouldn't have to break into a mad run like last time. The whimsical eggplant fell into the flames with a clean _ker-plunk_, sending the flames into a big crackle-fest of purple. Seriously. The flames turned freaking purple.

Ok. So purple is my favorite color, alright? I stood there quietly amused by the purple flame for maybe a minute or two longer. Or three. But I had clearly been standing there for _days _according to the person behind me.

"Get outta the way, already!" They growled, shoving me to the side. I stumbled away from them, turning around to see who it was. Isaac from Apollo cabin was standing in front of the brazier now, glaring at me. "Stupid Hermes kid… too stupid to know when it isn't their turn anymore," he muttered as he haughtily threw his food into the flames.

I just grit my teeth and took it. If he wanted to be an asshole, let 'im. Dusting myself off, I made my way to join back up with the Biscuit Tube. I had made a good distance away from the Pavilion when I felt my shirt collar ram into my throat. A harsh yank threw me backward to the ground. The sky was above me, and so was my brain. What the shit just happened?

Then Isaac's face appeared as he stood over me.

"Hey, Hermes kid."

A small groan escaped me as I rolled to my side so I could sit up. The wind had been completely knocked out of me—it seemed that Isaac had tailed me from the Pavilion and had yanked me backward so he could pick a bone with me, whatever it was.

Scanning his face, he looked malevolent. Bloodthirsty. I didn't bother getting up because something inside me was too terrified to breathe, let alone move.

Across his face spread this strange grin that was rough as sandpaper; like when he'd followed me down here, he meant business. He barked at me to stand up, but I couldn't…

"What? Too afraid? Maybe you should call over your _stupid _cabin counselors to come save you, you little _shit_!"

I'd had enough. "What's your problem? I didn't do anything to you!"

"Sure as _hell, _you didn't!" he spat as he lurched toward me, "you think your little stunt in the Art Room didn't have some sort of consequence for me? Sure, Travis and Connor got in trouble for it too because we left you guys alone when you destroyed the Art Room, but _I_ was the one who got _ragged_ on for it. Then you damn Hermes kids go and do it again today—tattling on me about not supervising my cabin at archery class—"

"WELL HEY, it's not _our_ frickin' fault you're irresponsible!"

Wrong thing to do.

Isaac's lips curled back when this hoarse yell tore out of him, releasing some of his menacing rage. In a second, he had thrust his hand down and took a handful of my shirt, his hand trembling in anger. I clenched my eyes shut as he threw back his white-knuckled fist—

All I could do was wait for the intense pain.

Wait for my blood to come cascading into my eyes…

For the little shards of my glasses to go flying all over the place

Just like last time… Just like last time…

"ISAAC!" His name ripped across the air like a razorblade, nearly splitting me in two. Isaac froze, tensing his jaw. Someone was calling him. Someone could see him trying to hurt me. A curse escaped his snarling mouth as his monstrous grip on my shirt lessened. Whoever had spotted us, they were coming closer.

The dirt rustled beneath their feet when they finally stood by us, silent.

"Get off her. You're already in enough trouble," the person growled.

Isaac's fist tightened around my shirt again in frustration. At last he released me, letting me hit the dirt in a heap.

"Shut up!" he whispered sharply, spittle flying. "Why are _you _trying to stop me anyway? We're on the same damn side!"

"Because you're too rash. They've already got ideas about you because of how much you've been leaving your cabin unsupervised. Why else do you think they relieved you of your status as counselor, Isaac?"

Isaac averted his scalding glare. Not a word left his mouth.

The person shifted their weight and assumed a ridiculing posture. "Besides," the person said, "this _freak_ isn't even _worth_ it."

With a turn of the head, Isaac looked back at me and summed me up as if to decide whether or not the person was right. I guess he had come to his conclusion when he finally stood up. Walking away, Isaac shoved past the person, muttering something about how this incident wasn't over between the two of them. Soon he disappeared into a thicket, heading back toward the cabin commons.

The person was still standing before me as I sat up on the ground, trying to comprehend everything that had just transpired in the blink of an eye.

"You better learn faster, freak."

I didn't respond as their frigid eyes bore into my skin. They seemed mocking, daring me to reply. I didn't.

The person gave me one last glance before they turned their back and skulked away with their hands jammed into their jean pockets. Now that I was alone, I was left mute and astounded. My breath rattled in my chest, uncontrollably shaking as I stumbled to my feet. Thoughts and questions throbbed in my skull; no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't wrap my mind around something: the person who had saved me—

was Logan.


	10. The Truth About My Embarrasing Panties

**Chapter Ten**

When I squished back into the Biscuit Tube, I was still a little shaky. And for once, I was really grateful to be back; the Hermes Kids playfulness helped to subdue my shock from being called out by Isaac. The room buzzed with laughter and talking as everyone lounged around in their bunk beds or hung out in little poker circles with their friends. On the floor, Biscuit kids played Texas Hold Em and Go Fish. A pile of gummy bears and jellybeans were crammed into the middle of their circle while they fought over how "the pot" was going to be distributed. My mood was definitely lighter as I fumbled toward my bunk.

Well, Logan wasn't around of course. Inwardly, I hoped he wasn't trying to settle things with Isaac. Sure thing he'd get the snot knocked out of 'im with the crazy Apollo counselor being mad and all. Wait…

I stopped as I stood before the ladder that led up to my ramshackle bunk bed.

Logan… Logan had said something about Isaac getting removed as cabin counselor. Yeah, guess it made sense _now_ why he would have been so angry earlier, but I still didn't have any idea why he had to pick it with _me_.

And okay, maybe I _did_ destroy the art room (no matter what my objections about Pale Guy) and maybe he _did_ get ragged on the most for it; and perhaps the whole incident in archery class was, in some way or another, my fault also. Still.

Shaking my head, all the thoughts surrounding the matter whirred together like some kinda "idea-soup" as I resumed ascending the ladder until I was lying in my saggy bunk bed once more.

The sounds of shuffling and laughter billowed up to the ceiling as I ran my fingertips along the rough edge of the bed frame, attempting to concentrate on my recollections of the incident. Logan, who hated me the day before, was saving my ass all the sudden; Isaac had been demoted from his counselor position, not to mention his words to Logan, "we're on the same side." What was up with that? How the hell could they possibly be on the same side when Isaac was a self-proclaimed Hermes Kid hater?

And then it hit me—

Well, a _toothbrush_, I mean.

My thoughts all fell apart like a Jenga tower catastrophe. The little bristles of the toothbrush now looked me dead on in the face; they were all wiry and bent out of shape like they had been scrubbing sewer grates instead of toilets.

"Jakobin!" Connor's familiar voice called as he rattled the posts of my bunk, "No nap time for you, miss _lollygagger_. There's some toilets that need cleanin', ya know."

I groaned, rubbing my messy hair with my hand. Mr. D had assigned me Toilet Duty for the next four weeks. The thought had completely escaped me with the whole incident of the firecrackers in the Aphrodite Cabin, archery practice, and my little skiff after lunch.

"_Now_, Wako Jako, or we'll tell Mr. D that you refused and he'll turn you into a dog so you can clean the toilets with your _tongue_," threatened Travis.

Squinting at the toothbrush next to me, I gave way to a little sigh.

"Guess I'll do it, then."

"Great to hear, Jakobin, great to hear," Connor praised as he pat the side of my bunk bed. Travis didn't say anything; he just grabbed Connor aside and started snickering, like they had some sort of inside joke about me. While I wanted nothing more than to climb down from my bunk bed and interrupt their pleasant little conversation, I had some lonely toilets waiting for my company in the bathroom. That and I had some rather important business to attend to while I was there. Luckily, however, I was able to catch hold of the last thing Travis said…

"She's gonna be so mad…"

--

I have been through many, many terrors. I have had mom tell me I was a young lady and that it was time we go shopping at Victoria Secret for thongs; I have seen Mrs. Gale scrape her gnarly, barnacled feet with a cheese grater; I have even walked in on my own dad while he was trying to shave off his _armpit hair_—

but _nothing_, not _anything_, amounted to the last stall in the Camp Half-Blood bathroom.

I screamed bloody hell and slammed the stall shut, panting at the mere sight of it. Disturbing images of sprawling mold and dead cockroaches floating in the murky green oblivion of the toilet bowl were being burned into my brain. It was like a miniature version of Hades, only ten times worse. Maybe the Lord of the Dead should visit Camp Half Blood's bathroom for a few new ideas in his Fields of Punishment.

Recovering from the… _hygienic nightmare_ of the bathroom stall, I darted back to the sinks to wash my hands— and after seeing a stall like_ that_, no amount of hand soap would be enough.

While I was drying my hands with some paper towels, I remembered the business that I needed to take care of. Suddenly my heart was beating against my ribcage like some sort of wild animal in fear while I dashed to the bathroom doors and locked them to make sure no one could get in. Something this important should've been done right after the Art Room incident, but I had been sidetracked by Chiron. I mentally kicked myself in the ass for being so stupid.

Hastily, I pulled off my shirt and threw it onto the floor, examining my chest and back. I was really worried about the body slam that I had suffered earlier this morning, but surprisingly, there were no purple marks on my skin. I scanned some more for any sort of bruising. To check for further injuries, the jeans had to come off too. It was really embarrassing, even though no one was around. The last thing I wanted to do was be half naked in a bathroom where a portal to the Netherworld was sitting in the last stall.

I scowled. It was times like these that I cursed my glasses—they kept sliding down my nose whenever I tried to look down at my knees for any cuts, despite my commands of "obey, foul spectacles!" Eventually they started becoming a real pain, so I pulled them off my face and set them on the sink counter so they wouldn't bother me anymore.

With what my hopping around and screaming at the occasional centipede that scuttled across the floor, I must have looked like some spastic pigmy doing a super-dorky, half-naked rain dance, but I didn't care. Dad said that this sort of thing was very necessary; doing a full-body check like this was the difference between life and de—

"JAKOBIN!"

I.

Stopped.

Breathing.

I don't know how the hell it happened, but someone was standing there. And with my near-sighted eyes, whoever-it-was's face was just an unrecognizably obese blob of brown, orange, and blue. It took me only a few seconds to realize that this person was seeing me in here—with only my bra and underwear on. My _Sesame Street_ underwear.

My face twisted into the hideous mutant lovechild of sheer horror and brutal embarrassment. Then I screamed like a headless chicken and attempted to run away, but smacked into the door of a bathroom stall instead. Now, under normal circumstances, running into walls or doors wouldn't be that embarrassing— but when you're only in your little Big-Bird-and-Snuffy speckled panties and you're blind as hell, it's the equivalent of getting wet-noodle-whipped by a cross-dressing midget clown.

I groaned and put a hand over my forehead as I stumbled into another stall and locked the door behind me. More than anything, I just wanted to dig a hole and die—even clean the Oblivion Bathroom Stall—as long as it meant not having to be this damn humiliated. It seemed hours before anyone said anything to break the majorly awkward silence.

"Uh… you okay?" were the next words I heard.

Nothing left my mouth; my voice was being strangled by embarrassment.

"It's just us, Jakobin—Travis and Connor."

Well, I said a very bad word. Great. Now my cabin counselors know I'm a dork.

And they laughed.

"We kinda picked the lock on the bathroom door because we, uh," one of them stammered, "this is our punishment too. Remember when I said we got in trouble with Chiron at the amphitheatre yesterday? Well… yeah. We came to help you clean, but it looks like you were… uh…"

They were seriously holding back their laughter; their little snorts and "pbbbts" sputtered out in between their words—

"You were busy with your friends on Sesame Street!"

I gathered up a microscopic shred of dignity and tried to justify myself: "You're just mad because Snuffy is awesome and you wish you had 'im on your panties."

"_HA_HA!" Travis (obviously) snickered, "Connor wears panties!"

By the sound of it, Connor and I both smacked our foreheads with a sigh.

--

When I finally had my clothes (and glasses) on again and we were all scrubbing the toilets, it seemed that the Stoll Brothers couldn't keep their curiosity down any longer.

"So why were you dancing in your underwear?" Travis asked bluntly.

I rolled my eyes slightly and stopped scrubbing the toilet seat for a minute.

"I wasn't dancing, I was just check—" I began, but the Stoll Brothers cut me off:

"—checking yourself for breast cancer?"

"—checking yourself out in the mirror?"

"No, dorkapedes," I sighed, half laughing at their answers. "I'm a hemophiliac."

Both of them were silent, like their potato brains were turning into French fries trying to figure out whatever the hell a hemophiliac was. I decided to explain further so that their puny minds wouldn't get fried in the extreme heat of thought.

"It means that I can die from a paper cut. My blood doesn't clot around a wound to keep the rest of my blood from escaping; it just keeps coming out. So I have to check myself all the time for bruises and cuts. If I don't, I could die of blood loss."

Two big long "ohhhhhs" came out from the other stalls and I smiled.

"That explains why you don't like doing any activities with us," Connor deducted. "But what about that body slam earlier in Wrestling Class? The one you got from the Apollo chick?"

I snorted. "Yeah, I was worried about that too. But I'm okay. And I mean, it's great that at least when she body slammed me, we were on a cushioned mat. It could've been bad. _Really_ bad."

"Sheez; your body's pretty resilient then," Travis shrugged as he hopped out of his stall, "especially with your condition. I mean, have you ever…you know… been cut?"

I stopped scrubbing again and looked down at my reflection in the toilet water. My expression was grim, my brown hair hanging down in my eyes in its scraggly, wiry strands. I just shook my head, shaking off all the memories Travis's last word brought…

"No," I replied. "I've never been cut."

He poked his head into my stall, raising an eyebrow.

"Seriously? Never? You're sure?"

"Sure as hell," I told him. "Sure as hell."

"_Dude_!"

I smiled again and wiped my forehead with the back of my hand, leaving my bathroom stall so I could move onto the next dirty toilet. Surprisingly, there were only a few stalls left for cleaning—having Connor and Travis around had seriously helped. And with the three of us together, we actually ended up finishing before dinnertime—a major plus according to the Stoll Brothers.

"You don't wanna be in here after dinner with the Ares kids," Connor explained. "It's like feeding Cerberus a cheese and bean burrito smoothie. Just nasty, man. Nasty."

A shiver went down my spine. I made sure to write myself a huge mental note to wait at _least_ an hour before going to the bathrooms after dinner, lest I smell the after-effects of ranch style beans and coleslaw.

As we (at long frickin' last) exited the bathrooms, we strolled up to the Cabin Commons were a group of Apollo kids were gathered at the fountains. Some kid had a lyre in his hand which he strummed every now and then while he told a story to some of the younger Apollo kids. It didn't surprise me with how young some of them were—nine and ten with their big eyes mesmerized by the older kid with the lyre; the Apollo cabin was about as big as the Hermes cabin, so there was a wide range of age differences.

The dude with the lyre paused for a minute, peering at the kids.

"And then, Medusa did the worst thing of all—"

The kids' huge fish eyes begged him for the rest of the sentence.

"She turned the REMOTE CONTROL into the STONE— right as little Jimmy had paused on the _Playboy channel!_"

Then they all screamed, some of them laughing. Others raised their eyebrows and nudged each other; muttering "way to go, Little Jimmy…"

Lyre dude then concluded that Little Jimmy got beaten with a wooden spoon when his parents came home and found out was he was doing. The moral of the story was supposed to be to never have Medusa as a girlfriend, let alone invite her over to the house to watch movies. Especially dirty ones. The crowd soon dispersed, laughing off the Lyre Dude's story. Travis and Connor then advanced, punching the dude's arm.

"Hey John," Travis said, "nice story ya had goin'."

John just smirked and shrugged. "Yeah, I have to improvise to give my younger siblings somethin' to do or they'll start causing trouble. Our previous cabin counselor never thought about it, so our cabin was always really unruly."

Connor's eyebrows screwed up as he leaned forward, as if he'd heard wrong.

"Previous counselor?"

John shifted his weight, meeting Connor's serious eyes.

"Yeah. 'Member Isaac? Well… he got chewed out by Chiron this morning about how irresponsible he's been since he became counselor and all..." John trailed off, hesitating to finish.

_"And?"_

"He got removed. Chiron said that he wasn't taking his responsibilities seriously enough, so he appointed me instead."

The three of them stood there in a tense silence for a minute. Connor actually looked really concerned about Isaac's removal, although I couldn't fathom why. Isaac seemed to hate him and Travis both. But I decided to keep my head out of it.

"That's real great, John," Travis smiled with a half-hearted laugh. "Good luck bein' counselor. It's not for the weak, ya know."

John gave a smile of relief as well, his eyes squinting in the sunlight. He thanked the Stoll Brothers for the conversation, but told them he had to catch up with his cabin.

"Don't want to end up like Isaac," he muttered to Connor and Travis. Then he just trotted away toward the crowd of Apollo kids bunched on the golden stairs of their cabin. He waved at us over his golden lyre.

The three of us then stalked back toward the Biscuit Tube in a strange silence. Connor had his hands jammed in his cargo shorts pockets, his eyebrows furrowed in deep thought. Travis didn't seem troubled at all; it seemed that in most cases, Travis just let Connor do all the heavy work. For a second I wanted to ask Connor why he was being so serious, but I decided against it. He probably wouldn't appreciate a pesky, seemingly-twelve-year-old weenie sticking her nose into his problems, anyway.

Travis stupidly started laughing and mentioned that John had totally forgotten about how he and Connor had thrown water balloons at him just yesterday afternoon, but Connor didn't respond to Travis's lighthearted talk. He just kept a steady stare on his feet until we stopped at our cabin's grubby brown porch.

I sort of felt bad for Travis's trying to lighten the mood, so I told him that I'd seen their prank while Chiron had been giving me a tour the other day. I made sure to mention how funny it'd been John had lobbed his lyre at one of them. A meager smile lit on Travis's face, but quickly faded. And even as Travis and I went inside, Connor remained on the porch, like he was trying to fit invisible puzzle pieces together in his mind.

"He gets like that," Travis whispered as we entered the Biscuit Tube, "he just likes people to leave him alone and let him think."

My lips pursed. "But shouldn't he be happy that Isaac got removed 'n all?"

"Actually, I bet he is. But the thing is that Connor's been on bad terms with Isaac ever since he became the leader of the Apollo cabin. He's probably curious about where Isaac's been going, if he really _has_ been removed for not supervising his cabin like John says."

"What about you?"

Travis shrugged and said that he didn't like Isaac either, but he let Connor deal with all the big problems.

Huh. Just like I figured. _Juuust_ like I figured.


	11. Crumpets and Zombie Flavoured Tea

**Chapter Eleven**

The rest of the day passed by in a haze. After the eating in the Dining Pavilion, we made our voyage to the amphitheater where a sing-a-long ensued, just as the night before. I sat higher up on the amphitheater's sloping benches, watching everyone below. Travis and Connor were talking to Chiron again, and it made me smile when the two of them laughed and nodded their heads, smacking Chiron on the arm in that "look at me, I'm so manly" way. The two of them strutted off, throwing their arms triumphantly into the air as they yelled to the crowd:

"WE ARE TOILET _GODS_!"

Silence. Maybe crickets in the distance. But mostly silence.

Poor toilet gods.

They didn't get much applause, but then again, they didn't seem to care. Travis and Connor were probably sure that they could smite the non-applausers with a swirly of death in the Oblivion Bathroom Stall anyway.

I leaned on my sleeved arms as I sat, listening to all of the campers sing their strange songs. The night smelled of roasting marshmallows and melting chocolate while the campers sang things like "Pain, Pain, Go Away," "The Spartans Go Marching In," and "Ring around the Psyche." I was especially disturbed by:

"_He's baying,_

_He's growling,_

_The Minotaur is howling!_

_Theseus chopped off his leg_

_And baked his head_

_And had beef burritos in the morning." _

My mouth twitched. They had completely distorted the happy little tune of "It's Raining, It's Pouring." After a song like that, I was seriously waiting for all the campers to quit the smores façade and just starting gnawing each others' arms off into little bloody stumps. I mean, come on—_baking heads_?

Eventually we were dismissed from the amphitheater by a group of goaty-dudes with crushed Diet Coke cans on their heads. I assumed it was a "present" from Mr. D, who I'd noticed took it upon himself to boss the poor goaty dudes around.

Everyone lifted up from their seats and migrated out of the amphitheater like a herd of cattle. I was moseying through the Cabin Commons when I caught sight of a group of kids bunching around a little fire pit they had made. They were all laughing and joking with each other, their faces outlined by the warm, yellow light that flickered from their dancing fire. Part of me wanted to join them— wanted to join in on their scary story telling and the smore munching; wanted to just... be _around_ them. But the other part told me to do what I did yesterday—just go back to my cabin and try not to bother anybody.

I sighed, my eyes narrowing at the camp fire kids who were still merrymaking in front of me. Who needed smores? Who needed scary stories? Not me, _that's_ who. I was tired anyway and I had books to read. Besides, if I came and joined them, they would probably all walk away and say they had suddenly caught AIDS or something.

I shuffled to the Hermes Cabin. My fingertips had even touched the cabin's door handle when someone yanked off my hoodie, revealing my disheveled, wiry hair. I yelped like a pansy.

"Hey, Jakobin!" a happy voice chimed.

I whipped around abruptly, my shoulders stiff by my neck. My chin wrinkled and my eyes widened in fear making me look like a prune-y old lady who'd just had her floppy boob grazed by a stranger. Only it wasn't a stranger.

The hoodie-yanker turned out to be Connor, who now looked quite confused as he observed my bad case of hoodie hair and horrified-old-crusty-lady expression.

"Uh… _okaaaay_. Are you turning in early because of the rat's nest on your head or because you made that face in the amphitheater and now your facial muscles are stuck?" He asked, pointing at my frazzled 'do. At first I didn't have any breath to say anything back. I had seriously expected the hoodie-yanker to be Isaac coming back to knock my face in.

"N-no," I stammered, shoving my hood back over my head like some sort of hermit shell. "I'm just… _tired?_"

Connor sighed and told me that I couldn't possibly be tired, considering that he'd hardly made me participate today in any activities.

"Unless you have some other disease called dork-o-sleepiosis that makes you sleepy due to excess amounts of LAME!"

I said I didn't have excess amounts of lame— it was just _him_ that had a rare disease that mistakes radness for lameness, thus causing all of the rad people he knows to actually be lame. Therefore, he himself would be dubbed lame, forcing him to realize that he'd been living a lie his entire lame-tastic life.

Connor was silent for a minute. If I was lucky, maybe he was actually trying to grasp everything that I'd just told him.

"Well…" He began.

"You're going to let me go to sleep now, maybe?" I asked hopefully.

Connor looked down at me and smiled good-heartedly, putting a hand on my shoulder. I gave way to a sigh of relief. I knew it. Connor had always been a more intelligent and kind person than anyone else I knew anyway. Of course he'd understand why I'd want to—

"If you're not lame, you won't go to sleep. And that's that."

I blinked. "What?"

"You heard me, cheesepuff. See ya," Connor bade snobbishly, abandoning me as he walked off towards the Cabin Commons. My jaw hung open.

There it was again. Me being wrong for the ten-billion-and-seventeenth time. Right when I think someone's nice, they walk away and tell me I'm a lame-o. Way to go, Jakobin. Way. To. Go.

I sighed and turned back to the Hermes Cabin door. Screw Connor. Why should I care about what he said? I lowered my eyes as perhaps the voice of self-doubt, or someone else all together spoke to me in my mind:

'_Are you really going to admit you're lame, Jakobin?'_ the voice inside my head pestered. A grumble arose from my throat in silent aggravation.

"I'm not lame," I peeped in the nerdiest voice ever while my hand was about to turn to handle on the cabin door. Despite my statement, all I could hear in my mind head was all the stupid insults I'd collected over the past two days. They were all scratching at my conscience, clawing at me like a rabid animal.

Pursing my lips, I narrowed it down to two very simple things.

Before me was the door leading into the cabin— a door that blatantly meant further ostracizing and supreme weenie-dom.

Behind me was a Cabin Commons full of kids who might chase me out of their camp fire with pitch forks and rotten eggs. Both options seemed relatively fatal, only one was a bit quicker and perhaps smellier than the other. With a deep breath, I made a final decision. I even did something that I didn't think I'd do:

I let go of the handle.

"I'm _not_ lame," I muttered as I kicked the door closed and jerked myself towards the Cabin Commons. The moment I left the Hermes Cabin stoop, I knew what Connor was trying to do. He wasn't trying to be mean, he was challenging me. Challenging me to do the same thing that Chiron had challenged me to do— to have faith in myself.

Because the only one who would prove all those insults wrong—

was _me_.

--

"Welly well well. Look who decided to show up," Someone said, standing up on a rock, a lyre at their side. Apparently it was John at the fire pit, probably telling another story. Most of his cabin was gathered around him (with exception to Isaac, of course) as well as Travis, Connor, and a small handful of Biscuit Kids.

And then there was me. O Glorious, on-the-brink-of-pissing-her-pants Me. The moment John acknowledged me, the whole of the crowd turned their heads in my direction, practically scorching my clothes. As if that wasn't embarrassing enough, I was nervous as hell. My hands trembled madly in my pulled-over sleeves, so I looked like a penguin in the midst cardiac arrest.

"Hey, Wako Jako," Travis teased, "decide to skip out on that bucketful of _lame_?"

"I guess," I croaked, trying not to focus on the sheer amount of kids looking at me. If I didn't regret taking Connor up on his challenge before, I was regretting it now. I was about to just call it quits and run for my pathetic life towards the cabin, but that dumb John kid just _had _to break in with his stupid... _nice-ness_.

"Good ta see ya, Jak. We were just tellin' a story. Come pop a squat," he said pleasantly. I just sorta nodded my head in a "as long as you don't kill me" manner and proceeded to the fire pit, trying to find a seat. John suggested I sit next to some dude nibbling on these biscuit-like things. The nibbling dude smiled primly at me, asking if I 'should like to pah-take in his evening crumpets.'

"Go on. Take it, ducky," he coaxed in his obviously English accent. I looked around awkwardly before I snatched the crumpet up in my sleeve-y mits and made a small mumble of thanks. Then John introduced the crumpet kid as "Wesley Pennington, the dude from Britain."

"_GREAT!_" Wesley interjected. "It's _GREAT_ Britain, you blithering idiot! Thurza _big_ difference! There's _Great_ Britain and then there's just _good _Britain… which is basically Ireland."

The rest of the crowd rolled their eyes at Wesley. I, on the other hand, was admiring his amazing accent which radiated pure awesome and everything that was The Beatles and London anything Union Jack-tastic. Unfortunately, I didn't get to sit next to Wes because my retardo cabin counselors wouldn't let me.

Connor and Travis piped up that they had some Irish mixed up in them somewhere and how they "took umbrage" to Wesley's snooty statement. So I ended up next to the weed-o guy, Ellfo, who was pretty cool.

"Wassup, man," he greeted in his slurred, stuffy voice. I was about to say I was doing pretty good when he just put a finger in front of his mouth and said: "Shh… shh...you're groovy. Everything's groovy…"

At first I was a bit weirded out that he'd answered his own question, but then I wasn't. Ellfo's "groovy" usage made me think of my dad and all his beatnik terminology that he'd passed on to me. He probably would've answered Ellfo's statement with snaps and "Right on, man. Right on."

I plopped down on the stone next to Ellfo while John told some story about Persephone assuming a yoga position called "The Grunting Turtle," which was the only thing that could make the ghoul guards in The Underworld pee their pants in laughter, despite their lack of bladder, and their lack of pants.

All I can say is: it might have been funny had I not been sitting next to Ellfo.

During John's story, Ellfo would dig around in his hoodie pockets until he pulled out what he'd been looking for.

Lo and behold—it was butter.

I could feel my face scrunch up as I watched Ellfo ever so daintily peel off its paper wrapper, then cram the entire stick into his mouth like a starving hobo off the street. The true horror was saved for when John said something funny: Ellfo would open his butter-smothered mouth and laugh, revealing the yellowy gloop on his tongue.

Yeah.

There was _no_ way in _hell _I was sitting next to that guy at lunch tomorrow.

Despite Ellfo's "see-food" and my initial feelings of wanting to crap my pants, the night was actually really fun. After the story, I got to talk to Wesley about all these underground British bands like The Naughty Socks and Zombie Flavoured Tea. I even found out that this Apollo chick named Akindra (who turned out to be my body-slammer) listened to Jack's Wrath, which was pretty high up there on my scale of radness.

When everything was over and we were walking back to our cabin, Connor pulled me aside on the cabin stoop. All the other Hermes kids followed Travis inside, saying "_Oooooo_, Jakobin's in _troublllle"_ as they went. Once they were all inside, Connor turned to me. I couldn't tell if he was mad or not, since his moppy hair completely blocked out his eyes. The only instrument of expression was his mouth, which was currently in a pinch-hole position. At first I thought he was going to taunt me again or tell me that I had to sleep on the floor now, but he didn't. He just crossed his arms, shifting his weight to one foot.

"It took a lot of guts to get out there, tonight," he said sternly, nodding his head.

I just looked down at my feet and fiddled with my sleeves, concentrating on a specific scuff on my sneakers. For a second, I thought of saying something, but I didn't.

"Honestly, I didn't think you'd show up," Connor continued. "With what Isaac did to you earlier."

My neck almost snapped with how quickly my head shot up. "You heard about that?" I whispered, embarrassed.

"From Logan. He said Isaac tailed you after lunch and tried to hurt you."

There wasn't much response on my part. Thoughts of what Isaac had said re-emerged from the shallows of my mind, the memory of how scared I was under his fist. Not only this, but I was wondering why the hell Logan would tell.

"Why didn't you tell me and Travis?" Connor persisted, uncrossing his arms. "If something like that happens to you, you have to tell us so we can report it. How do you expect us to help you if you don't say anything?"

"Because I was afraid."

Connor didn't say anything else. He let out an irritated sigh and just shook his head. Meanwhile, I moved my gaze to a crack in the stoop and shoved my hands into my jean pockets. I couldn't expect Connor to understand me when _I _didn't even understand me, so if he was getting frustrated, I could see why. A few minutes passed before either of us spoke again.

"Just remember that Travis and I are here to help," he said at last. "And good job getting out there tonight."

When we finally went inside and I was lying in my bunk, (because apparently it was _cursed _according the rest of the Hermes kids, so no one wanted to sleep in it anymore) I actually couldn't sleep myself. Whether it was the fear that I'd have nightmares about butter-gargling Ellfo or floating cockroach carcasses, I had no clue. With no other resorts, I pulled out a book from my messenger bag that was still smushed up at the foot of my bed. It was only then that I noticed that this whole time, a small light had been shining through Travis's bed sheets. He still had the top bunk and he was rolled over fast asleep, but he'd left the flashlight on again. He left it on so I could sleep.

I bit my lip and turned away. I felt like crying. Not because I was sad, but because I was happy. However, I didn't want to wake up Travis like I had last time, so I held back the waterworks. It seemed to be the least I could do.

A few chapters of Great Expectations flew by and my lids grew heavy under the dim glow of Travis's flashlight, my mind full of evil Uncle Pumblechook and creepy old ladies catching fire.

But while I floated off into the realm of sleep, I couldn't help realizing that some tiny fiber of me felt different. Felt better. Because even though today had nearly been another disaster, it was worth all the humiliation to find out that despite most of the campers thinking I was "freak" and a hoodoo...

Two people cared about me enough _not _to care about what those campers thought.

It was something that I'd never had before, and right then, I made my first prayer to the gods before I completely lost consciousness.

_"Please let it stay this way..."_


	12. Author's Note

**Temporarily Discontinued**

_Hello All._

_I'm quite unhappy that I must fall to this level of lameness in my quest to complete a fan fiction. Wowever, I must be truthful and tell you that_ The Misadventures of Jakobin Blane _will have to take a seat on the backburner for now._

_Currently, I'm having trouble with some classes, but as soon as they are taken care of, I will pick up again. Until then, here is a glimpse into the next chapter:_

Over the next two weeks, it was bad luck as usual. Travis and Connor went snooping through my messenger bag and hid my sketchpad, which I went trumping through the entire Camp (including the Ares Cabin that reeked of beef jerky and arm pits) to find, but failed miserably. Eventually I fell to threatening Travis and Connor. Their pet rats proved to be very useful when held over the hungry mouth of Camp Half-Blood's guard dragon, I must say. Definitely helped me _persuade _Travis and Connor to surrender my beloved sketchpad.

Thankfully, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-_Dork_ came stumbling back with my sketchbook to save their precious rats, though not without saying I was a cold-blooded killer and that they were going to tell the whole camp about my Sesame Street panties. But oh the well. I had destroyed an Art Room. Sesame Street underwear wasn't going to make _that_ big of a splash.

Ellfo in the meanwhile, was constantly trying to force me to join him in his crazy snacking binges. Turns out he didn't have many friends either, so I was his designated best buddy. This meant that every time I turned around, it was the same old thing every time:

"Hey, um… Jakobin? You, uh… wanna try some gum?"

The first time I was stupid and didn't think to look at the wrapper before popping the gum into my mouth. And guess what? It was _butter flavored_. My mouth became a swamp of yellow as I spat the horrendous candy out of my mouth, shooting the yellow wad out like a freakin' war torpedo. The results were dire. The butter flavored gum had catapulted into Ellfo's scraggly mat of hair, and he hadn't even noticed. All I can say is:

I tried to tell 'im.

That was the extent of my social circle, unfortunately. Most of my cabin mates were particularly close and didn't have room for another friend; not that they were looking for one that had the reputation as the Schitzo Destroyer of Art Rooms and the Screaming Weenie Afraid of Darkness. Only my spud-minded counselors and butter-brained hippie friend wanted to hang around me, and that was very apparently due to their lack of a more astute material sitting in their skulls.

Activity wise, I was about as nimble as a pregnant dairy cow with three legs and four udders. Yeah. Sixteen blubbery teats flopping around in the wind isn't exactly my idea of "graceful" either. Moving on.

My skills at archery were, well, shot. And to further prove my superior lameness, Travis and Connor had reported my condition to Chiron which made it so that I couldn't participate in wrestling, sword training, or rock wall climbing at all. I had to sit out at all games of Capture the Flag as well, thus being forced to spend some real _warm and fuzzy_ time with the Aphrodite cabin last week who had also been sitting out.

I had been drawing a comic strip at the Cabin Common's fountain when the Aphrodite cabin (or more appropriately, The Primadonna Posse) showed up, tee-heeing with each other about gods know what. Now, what I did to offend them, I can't recall; but somehow or someway they decided that I was greasy crumb unworthy to share their relative space. So naturally, they went on the offensive.

"Ever heard of a skirt?" one of the chicks sneered, her pageant-girl face pinching up in disgust. One of her sisters made a snide remark about my (apparently)unflattering clothes and boyish hair, though I never caught what she'd said. I had been trying desperately to ignore the girls and focus on my comic strip, but found it impossible.

They had begun demanding me to answer them when I finally looked up, raising my eyebrows—

"Can I help you?" I asked, hoping the acknowledgement would make the girls disappear.

But alas, the Primadonna Posse remained. The pageant girl smirked, putting a finger to her lip so as appear in thought.

"Of course you can help," she said, "by answering a question for me..."

_Thanks for all of the love and support. I appreciate all of your comments and your PM's. But most of all, thank you all for just enjoying my work. That's all I can ask for. 3_

_Love,_

_Lorix_

* * *


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